Auto-Flagellatio [sonnet]
There’s nothing for it: blows must rain me down;
the things that now befall me I deserve.
Remove my feather-bed and eiderdown.
From fists of iron I’ll no longer swerve.
Such punishment completes the process well
while whiplash ripples on my back were blown.
My body now is flung to Jezebel
like meat before a tigers teeth is thrown.
Yet all is not in darkness blindly dressed;
for ecstasy still makes its brightness bloom
and in my secret chamber luminesced
transcending light to form a waiting room.
These lashes are a stage along the way
while Eros makes a pact with agape.
© 2012, Alan Morrison
The Naked Troubadour 