PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

Our victim was reputed to dislike

sandals, so, having lured him out of town,

we told him to remove his sandals and

give them to us.  We tossed them far away,

and told him---"You will not be needing them

"much longer."  I think, then, he realized

the harm that we meant to inflict on him.

We forced him to walk---well, to stumble---on

until the lights of Nain looked like small, dim

smudges on the horizon.  We brought him

to a stone post, a relic said to have

been planted in the time of David (he

who shamed his tribe and family because

he loved a boy, named Jonathan, Saul's son).

We bound Neaniskos to this, and then

began to pummel him with our clenched fists.

That might have been sufficient, but his cries---

then screams---compelled us to extend our fun.

We broke his fingers, individually;

then, with a stone, smashed each of his small toes,

and then the arches of his slender feet.

Then with those same stones, swung with strenuous

hatred, we smashed the bones beneath his face.

His shrieks of agony ceased, and his breath

slowed and then stopped entirely, as he hung

suspended from our ropes, broken and crushed:

no loss to any girl in Nain; never

to lust after some pretty boy again.

We panted with exhilaration as

we gazed, with pride, upon our evening's work.

Efforts like this would make all Israel

greater again, greater enough to bring

Rome to its knees that we might crush the life

out of it, and inherit its empire.

We left him hanging there:  wild beasts, or men,

would find his broken carcass soon enough:

another faggot, dispatched to Sheol.