A PRESCRIPTION FROM DOCTOR DE SADE

 

Folly - 29,5 x 39,5 cm acryl on canvas - verkauft/sold

A PRESCRIPTION FROM DOCTOR DE SADE

                                                         Lust’s passion will be served; it demands,

                                                         it militates, it tyrannizes.

                                                                                               Marquis de Sade

Here, take fifty

of these and if you manage to wake up

don’t call me in the morning. Better still

I want you perched atop a column

crushed by sunlight in some stony waste of

Syria or Sinai, a martyr to your failure of nerve.

Pain and pleasure are but Siamese twins

who share a couch and a plate of pommes frites. Nevertheless

next time an opportunity comes knocking, invite it in, offer a brandy,

then sit back and see what tingles first.

Maybe not a moment of perfumed nights will follow, or the perfect spasm,

though plenty of delicious remorse—think of your wife, her evenings

spent knitting a hair shirt for your conscience— oh sweat-drenched   

insomniac—or your husband working overtime to buy you

that vacation in Mazatlan you’ve always wanted—and no regrets to speak of.