PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

[after Acts 16]

She begged us, actually, to be our slave;
and thus, having obtained verbal consent,
we collared her into proper submission
(as after all, it was her own decision).
The tortures were not punitively meant:
done only for the pleasure that they gave
us in the doing:  floggings, and hot wax
dripped on her heaving breasts---these left red tracks
and marks upon her, temporarily,
as trophies to our hobby, Cruelty.
Only our brand on her was permanent
(proprietary, not a punishment)---
and lest, with wringing fear, you are afraid
that she had suffered undue injury,
our mentor stood by just to render aid
(if any had been needed medically).
With his guidance, our efforts were refined
to even greater depths of agony
for her (of course, to us---greater delight).
Those torments (so I think) unhinged her mind---
and, customarily, that will invite
demons.  They led her into divination;
and people paid for her prognostication---
and that brought us far more prosperity
that any other means we might invest.
We understood well that we now possessed
a rather rare and lucrative resource.
But this new income did not last, of course,
although we did not quite expect to lose
it to a pair of transients, those Jews
who had come to our city to proclaim
some sect of theirs.  Then, in some dead Jew's name,
they manifested supernatural power
and dispossessed our slave girl that same hour.
Although we tried to charge them by the law,
a whipping and a jail cell could not break
their spirits; and, at midnight, an earthquake
and subsequent events set at naught all
that we had done.  Are we still dominant?---
not us---not hardly now.  Despite our plea,
the magistrates have set our slave girl free,
all just because these Jews said it must be
so.  Our rights have been set aside in full,
although they are safe, sane, consensual,
and should be kept by Rome inviolably
sacred.  But no!---these Jew sods think that we
must follow their book of morality,
and that we should not be allowed to live
according to our choice alternative.