Perhaps it is the bull that gets the last laugh after all.
After a life being poked and prodded, after a finale
flayed and filleted, it is his leftover skin that turns us, his
tormentors, into the draft animals.
Perhaps it is with both disgust and amusement that
the bull sees the byproducts of his carcass used to
fashion these straps, these harnesses, these whips,
these gags, these paddles.
Perhaps his hard death has tempered his memories enough
for him to be amused by the boys with the leather collars
and cock rings, the boys trussed up with familiar shiny gear,
and suspended in their stalls by cowhide and steel.
Slaughterhouses and bathhouses are both kept dark
to keep the inmates calm, while they are poked and
prodded, while we enact these, the savage rituals
of our carnal desires.
In this crowded sex shop I touch the slings, the straps, the
restraints, all black and accentuated with chrome, and I
feel that hunger for flesh growing more insistent—
forbidden lusts from darkest corners of my desire.
I want to be disgusted, and I am.
I want to be appalled, and I am.
I want to be better than this and I am.
I want to see you suspended before me, chains tinkling,
leather gleaming with spilled lube and semen.
I know better than to ask the bull’s forgiveness.
Wess Mongo Jolley is a poet and poetry promoter living in Vermont. He is Founder and Executive Director of the Performance Poetry Preservation Project (http://poetrypreservation.org), and is most well known for hosting the IndieFeed Performance Poetry Channel podcast (http://performancepoetry.indiefeed.com) for more than ten years. As a poet, his work has appeared in Off The Coast, PANK, The New Verse News, Danse Macabre, The November 3rd Club, The Legendary, decomP, Dressing Room Poetry Journal, RFD, Warrior Poets, and in the Write Bloody Press book The Good Things About America. He lives on a ten acre parcel in rural Vermont, with his partner, various members of his clan, a failing vegetable garden, and an unidentified monster that has been known to chase visitors out of the woods if they dare to venture too far from the light. He is an urban poet, trapped in a rural body. He can be found on the internet at http://wessmongojolley.com, and at mongo@wessmongojolley.com
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