SHOCK’s resident poet Nigel Parkin gets into the mind of a tormented sadist in this latest SHOCKing Sonnet.
Torquemada
I
You can smell the sin in this rotting flesh.
Evil clings to the impure after death.
This body must still be judged and punished.
Believe me, if Christ has claimed this man’s soul
His blood will seep from the skin that is left
On this pitiful frame after the whip
Has made its mark. Give him twenty lashes.
Let us see if his soul is still hiding
In there, small, weak, pathetic and perverse.
Begin! Ah, look! Just as I suspected!
There is nothing in him to cleanse and bind
Those wicked bones, nothing to stop those limbs
From separating. There’s no blood, of course.
Gather the pieces. Grind this filth to dust.
II
Never has temptation come in such a
Potent form as this – a baker’s wife, young,
Simple, full of faith, a woman of wheat
And flour, the stuff of life, the dough, the bread.
This is my body, given for you. Take!
Oh, God! I know you hear all things on earth
And many things in Hell. I know you hear
Satan teasing me with your own words, false
To the core, to the very pit, wherein
Swings the pendulum of my doom. I must
Resist! Here I am, exposed for the whip!
I wear my scars with pride. I kneel on shards
Of shattered pots and glass, showing my faith
In blood and pain. And yet, she calls! She calls!
III
Now I understand what you are, blessed
Maria, saintly virgin, sent to me
In flesh that I may possess, not from Hell
But from all that is holy, from the Lord
Himself. So lie with me under the sword.
You who have known only the kneading hands
Of a baker can truly be adored
Before God, naked, open to the force
Of authority. I can forgive all
If you will truly forget your husband.
I will forgive…I will love…I…what’s this?
Do I hear your husband’s name on your lips?
See what you’ve done to my authority!
No-one must know of this. I’ll have your tongue!
