Sanguinary Lover

SANGUINARY LOVER
(A poetic allegory*)

Orléans woman, you are the laughing, bespangled,
Brassy-voiced singer of songs and incantations,
The syncopated, nimble-footed street entertainer
Tapping out five-four time for silver,
A painted player silently freeze-framing life
And mocking the hurried crowd.

You are the sultry, naked-breasted dancer
Arresting men’s eyes, a puppeteer, a string puller.
And yet be-stringed by another, darker power;
Bawdy, brawling, consuming, you are a soul seducer,
Enticing with your carnivals and beads,
Cajoling every passerby to bare their innocence to you.

You beckon from every darkened doorway;
At once forbidding and arousing, you lure
Empty-hearted men with your sultry, hollow promises
And leave them with the morning-after ache
Of your loveless, lonely bed, languishing
From the wounds of your one-night stands.

Sanguinary lover, “our lady” of the night,
Faithful to your lascivious, sacred calling,
You are presiding as the mistress-reverend mother
Among your cloistered Bourbon saints;
Performing the signing of the cross
On your own hedonic altar, wholly, wholly, wholly.

^{Thomas Fideler}

* This poetic allegory is addressing the spiritual undercurrent of both sex trafficking and the media/entertainment industries that use gratuitous sex to sell their wares to the public.

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