Salome: Canto Five

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Part 2 of the 6 part series

Updated 08/30/2017
Created 07/25/2011
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Most girls who pose for pornographic pictures have the dream
Of being famous, worshipped, and desired by men
As goddesses of sex.
So few are these apotheoses: the rest are a stream
Of girls whose flesh is briefly in the spotlight, then
They go down for more paycheques.

It's painful pondering the fate of the majority
Of girls in films like these. Those with little success
Must do extreme, lewd things,
Then they're forgotten in a year; for this cruel industry
Must quickly swap used for the young, to acquiesce
To viewers' fickle swings.

Salome doesn't make these films with hopes of being a star,
Nor does she care if she degrades herself onscreen:
She wants to shame all others.
Compassion for those wretched girls from her is very far;
She cares not how her sisters must themselves demean,
For she'd debase her brothers.

This demon dressed herself in the soft flesh of a young girl,
And had nude photos of herself put on the net
Not many months ago;
And when a young man saw them, he thought he had found a pearl,
So he searched all the world wide web hoping to get
More of this girl to show.

Salome sensed obsessing Herod's spirit wanting her,
So she published more photographs, and videos
Of her pink nakedness
On her pay website, hoping this young satyr then would err
With credit card in trembling hand, to see her pose
And fall in her abyss.

For with the name and number of his credit card, she then
Could get to all his money, steal it, and take over
The fool's identity.
Then she'd commit a crime and frame him for it; for all men
To her are easily corrupted. She's a rover
In search of male frailty.

He found her website, and viewed all her photo galleries.
One in particular had him enthralled: she wore
Jeans, and a tight T-shirt.
Each photo showed her in the stages of a slow strip-tease.
Off went the shirt, and the pants dropped down on the floor.
Her eyes showed her a flirt.

Off flew her white lace bra, her panties next slid down her hips
And rested on her bare feet, which then kicked them off.
She was as nude as Eve,
And just as unashamed. She spread her legs, and licked her lips.
In contrast to Salome's calm, he started to cough
And pant. He couldn't leave

His monitor. It wasn't merelythatshe showed her flesh,
It was thewayshe showed it: her so willing grin
Did not look like pretend.
These photo galleries were free: with them she'd not enmesh
Him; with a webcam she would rather show her skin.
This she would recommend

To him, to get his credit card out--this he gladly did,
For he became fixated on her lovely form.
Normally he wasn't so:
The man aspired to be a great musician. He'd forbid
Himself to waste his time in idleness--a storm
Of lures could never blow

Him from his daily practice of the piano for eight hours.
St. John the Baptist in his soul would discipline
Him never to let his eyes
Stray from the notes in his songbooks to gaze upon the flower
In women's hair on lewd websites. It was a sin
To him, and most unwise,

Even to spend more than ten minutes watching television.
The images beguile the eyes, but dull the mind.
He would have none of that.
So single-minded was the man in his rigid decision
To perfect his art that often he wished he was blind--
Just music he'd work at.

Salome, though, would work her charms and make the boy replace
Devotion to the beauty that comes in the ears
With pleasures for the eyes.
Now hearing involves listening: the active, attentive face
Of one who thoughtfully perceives Salome fears
She cannot mesmerize.

Instead, the man who watches passively what's on the screen
Can be manipulated much more easily:
He just takes it all in,
And views it all uncritically. Though it could be obscene,
Propagandistic, or mindless, he won't disagree
With it--he'll just gawk, and grin.

Salome, therefore, diligently worked to make him idle.
She'd sway her buttocks on his screen to turn his head
Away from higher attainments.
With him watching her on a webcam, she could then unbridle
The Herod underneath St. John, and have him led
To lower entertainments.

So when he saw her webcam ad below her lurid pictures,
He didn't hesitate to click on Salome's link
And enter his I.D.
On the page that followed. He stopped hearing John the Baptist's strictures,
And let his thirsty eyes imbibe Salome's pink,
Wild sensuality.

The hours went by as he enjoyed her dancing nude onscreen,
And while he could have been tickling piano keys,
He played another organ (!)
Turned into stone, he motionlessly viewed his so lewd queen:
Except for how her loveliness did ever please,
She surely was a Gorgon,

For he could not get up and leave--he'd only sit and stare.
And when they chatted, she'd do what he'd have her do--
She'd happily obey.
Still, she had his obedience, too; when he'd rise from his chair,
Wanting to play piano, she would say, "Don't you
Want me more to display?"

Then he would sit back down, and she'd entice him all the more.
This was the only use he had now for the ear:
To hear her tempting voice,
And give sway to the eye, which watched the swaying of the whore.
His was a sight of blindness, for it now was clear--
She gave him little choice

But to continue watching her, in her erotic poses.
At one point, she bent over and looked back at him.
She said, "Look at this eye
And goateed mouth. These women's faces need no ears or noses:
They have nothing to hear or smell, their wits are dim,
Yet still, they're very sly."

With Herod now supplanting John the Baptist utterly,
The boy was all eyes, and no ears, with thoughts for just
Her third eye and second mouth.
They execrate what's cultured, yet they're cunning in how they'll be
A hypnotizing influence, inspiring lust
For what's female, down south.

Salome wanted Herod to ignore the tedious north
With all of its so pointless intellectualizing.
"Your eyes just need to know
My skin, your ears my voice, and if your drooling mouth lets forth
A stream of sighs, your head's well-used," she said. "in prizing
Me, you will downward go."

Still bent over, she said, "The face's cheeks are not as sweet
As those below and at the back. The eye between
Them sees well being used
As one would use the mouth nearby. It's more than just a seat,
This second female face: it's prettier when seen;
When veiled, it is abused."

Salome's upside-down morality always reflects
Her favourite posture, bent over, her buttocks out,
Her head and face obscured
By the rest of her nakedness. This whore always selects
Lust before love, flesh before mind: her way is about
Being seen rather than heard.

Remaining in this so salacious pose, Salome said:
"Musicians learn to play recorders, do they not?
Then, blow in me that way.
The man replied, "I must stop now and play piano instead."
"Why stop?" Salome asked. "Stop me, for I have got
An instrument to play."

She lewdly touched herself as if to make herself a flute.
"With your sweet fingers, stop me there, and blow in here:
You'll play a melody
That I will sing, like the lascivious pleasing of a lute.
With me, you'll be a virtuoso. Every ear
Will praise your command of me."

With these Siren-like words, she sang to make him stay with her.
Although Salome spoke to him of blowing strumpets,
Of course, he could not play
What he was looking at. St. John could not at all deter
Him from enjoying her: no piano--or trumpets--
Could pull the boy away.

So Herod played neither real instruments nor female ones,
But back and forth his hand went, playing--as it were--
A trombone, for her sake.
Such is the degradation of the artist when he shuns
His gifts for guilty pleasures; when the mind does blur
From sleep, it's hard to wake.

Salome changed positions; now her legs were like a V.
That's V for vuvuzela, for her every moan
Was the pitch of that horn.
He now was deaf to all other sounds, to any melody
Except that note from her lips, that lewd monotone.
He no longer was torn

Between the pleasures of the ears and those of passive eyes.
Blind now to everything but her, he noted all
The notes Salome sighed.
The strumpet trumpeter stopped those two valves between her thighs,
But didn't stop bewitching Herod, in her thrall.
For him, she was opened wide.

Sometimes she stopped her horn's third valve by sucking on her finger.
She licked her lips seductively, as if she'd play
A certain pipe of his.
The strumpet's three valves stayed ever in view, always did linger
On his screen; for keeping enticed one's sexual prey
Is what seduction is.

Once more, Salome cunningly compared oral intercourse
To playing aerophones; for she said, "Play on my
Ocarina, if you please."
What fascinated Herod was how she combined her coarse
Immodesty with wit: though pleasing to the eye,
She gave his ears unease

With how she vulgarized his art; she also had a spark
Of cleverness with words, and this made him desire
The harlot all the more.
He only wished her merry, obscene jests would not make dark
The light of culture: he'd prefer her to aspire
To be better than a whore.

His wish, of course, could never be, for she'd lower the highs
Of music to the bass of base. Salome has
This as part of her trap
For all musicians: with her sexual lure, she'd compromise
Their talent, as when she'd make blacks forsake their jazz
To love the crudest rap.

The lust of Herod, though, made him forget St. John's ideal.
Her provocations pushed him so he could no more
Contain bursting desire;
He had no more control over how Salome made him feel.
He made a mess, as Onan did, all over the floor.
Of sex he now did tire.

He said good-bye to her, turned off his laptop, went to bed,
And thought of how he'd wasted an entire day:
No music played at all.
Regret and guilt were rocks that dropped relentlessly on his head.
How could he have so foolishly let slip away
His time, to be in her thrall?

He tossed and turned in bed, thinking of artists who will waste
Their time with idle pleasures, as he'd just enjoyed.
He thought of the decline
Of all the arts in recent years, because of people's taste
For crudeness and vulgarity: these have destroyed
The arts that once were fine.

Because the man believed all this, he started to despise
Himself for not being better than those other fools
Who trade their gifts for thrills.
He hated himself for making his ears servants to his eyes.
Salome's values vanish when hot passion cools,
And shame gives them all chills.

But when the blood's excited with the heat of lechery,
One's values are inverted: genius is obscure,
And crassness is admired.
The mind, thus burning, can't discern between mere ribaldry
And the poetically erotic; king and boor
Seem similarly attired.

Salome uses this confusion in her dark designs,
For she wants to corrupt more that this panting boy--
She'd wreck society.
She'd have religion, marriage, and culture in steep declines:
The want of pleasure does this best, so she'll destroy
With sexuality.

Now, this is why she has a female form; for with those curves,
She has the power to make the stronger sex much weaker
Than all the feminine.
The strongest civilization through desire always swerves
From what is best; from lust, it's blind to the much bleaker
Future it will be in.

That man was similarly ignorant of the dark fate
That was almost upon him, for Salome used
His credit card I.D.
To pose as him online, and prey on girls as if to sate
A lust for children. He'd then be falsely accused
Of such perversity.

Indeed, the mother of one of those girls pretended to be
The little girl herself; but she, with the police,
Identified the youth.
The next day, they arrested him: the woman's family
Were neighbours of his; now the man would have no peace,
And all from an untruth.

The local newspapers apprised the city of this scandal.
The man no longer was who he had been: St. John
Would be Herod forever.
This was Salome's plan for him; for she, a thief, a vandal
Of names and characters, would make a king a pawn.
She easily could sever

A man from his good name by putting it in the wrong place.
This is one of the ills of the human condition:
We are not who we are.
One, being good, may wrongly be subjected to disgrace;
Or, being bad, one may appear beyond suspicion
Because one is a star.

Salome steals the shapes of lovely girls so she may seem
As sweet as they, but in reality she's not:
She is a hideous devil.
The youth whom she ensnared really deserves all men's esteem,
But through her theft of his good name, the artist's thought
To be of men's lowest level.

A transcript of the lewd things that Salome said online,
In the man's name, was read aloud during his trial--
It seemed to prove his guilt.
The virtuoso's face has now been switched with that of swine;
Salome wrecked--in spite of his every denial--
The reputation he'd built.

In jail, again his reputation would be newly-shaped;
For there the inmates didn't see an ugly hog--
They saw a pretty boy.
He wasn't hated: he was lusted after, and was raped.
His courtroom shame, he now knew, was the mere prologue
To being a rapist's toy.

And where was his piano? He would never play it again.
The last thing he did with his hands was tie a rope:
He hanged himself--he's dead.
Salome is content to find another man to stain.
She says, "Beware of me: I'll make a man lose hope,
After losing his head."

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