Tag Archives: religious symbolism

Self-flagellation: The Last Highway out of Hell

Posted in Poetry English by
flagellation_by_mariapetrova_dd11d3u-fullview

This is not redemption—it is penance without absolution.

________________________

He whips himself, he whips himself very hard,

his silent screams, hiding behind an ugly grimace

The cat-o’-nine-tails screams like a mad banshee,

the knots striking in a frenzy, a blood thirsty race

Each lash is a tribute, a homage to a specific memory,

a black hole in the whole black and vast space of life

Each stroke exposes a white pulsating nerve,

a silver snake writhing under a very sharp knife

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He hurts himself, he hurts himself so real bad,

drawing crimson patterns across his naked back

The skin breaks, and ruby drops appear one by one,

thickening, congealing, stinking, and turning black

The flow of blood sometimes turns into a rivulet,

drops transforming into streams, streams into creeks

Crimson spatters his bent shoulders and the spine,

tracing the paths of pain and the punishment it seeks

________________________

He makes himself suffer; he suffers for very long,

feeling the whip slither within the stinking, thick slush

The skin is no more, his back is all but raw flesh,

but his overpowering regret, the whip fails to crush

‘Oh! Why do you punish, why do you hurt yourself?’

the Devil asks him with a mockingly soft sympathy

And God, He just turns his face away in disgust,

there is no place for him in His great hall of empathy

________________________

‘I walk the path of pain, I have chosen it for myself,’

he answers and grips the whip firmly and caresses it

‘I penalize myself, I pass each judgment harshly,

I condemn myself; the fire of misery is always lit

Self-flagellation is my penance for sins so many or few,

it is a dark journey, and I have been travelling ever since

Self-flagellation is the last highway out of my own hell,

while my soul burns in agony, I remain the exiled prince’

Song of Lilith

Posted in Poetry English by
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Before Eve, before obedience, there was Lilith—and she asked why.

_____________________________

O’ Lilith, our one mother, and the equal,

was it really you?

Upon the flowers of Eden,

the very first drops of dew?

_____________________________

You were created out of wet earth,

the very first man’s very first mate

You were his equal, you were his partner;

a companion to him, his destiny, his fate

_____________________________

It was you who took his side,

and it was you who reasoned

It was you who protested the submission,

the Devil’s shrewdness was so seasoned

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But then you were made a demon,

a vile and dark entity

But then you were made the fiend,

and you lost your real identity

_____________________________

Were you really corrupt at some level?

Or did you have a rotten soul?

Is it because you are the logic,

which defies all faith and Adam’ role?

_____________________________

Is this because you realized the concept,

or is this because you disobeyed God?

Or is it because you understood Him,

seeing religion as the original fraud?

_____________________________

O’ Lilith, I think it was really you,

our only mother and the equal

You could be our grand salvation,

perhaps, the only chance we knew

_____________________________

You gave birth to reason;

you did not birth us, perhaps

And you gave birth to justice,

reason and justice, victims of our lapse

_____________________________

We have inherited your wisdom,

though we do not carry your genes

Let it lead to understanding the purpose,

let it become the fundamental means

_____________________________

O’ Lilith, our one mother, and the equal,

was it really you?

Upon the flowers of Eden,

the very first drops of dew?