Verse by T. ALLEN GREENFIELD

 
I am o so aware in the Darkness
burden you bear, you're afraid of
What's there, what became your
Feared shadow,
As a child.
Does it haunt you still,
Does it have its own will,
Can it hurt you, can it
Break you like a doll?
Do the lights keep it back
From some nameless attack,
Or does it come near just
To feed on your fear?
But you know when I am there
It will vanish into air
For the only daemon you will
See, is me. Do I drain away
Your fears, do I kiss away your
Tears, do you truly need me then to
Hold back the Night?
I am Darkness, I am Love,
I touch you below and above.
When I'm there you are mine,
No demon god can climb
The glowing shield you can
Feel and see in the Dark.
I know Evil and its game,
Got its number, got its name
You'll be safe in my
Daemon arms once again.

Rivers of fire,  blood and desire
 Unquenchable thirst,
I've known from the first.
 At 13 I read "The Story of O"
Followed by Montague Summers,
 I felt synthesis grow.
(Darkness, Red-tinged, unfathomable glow.)
 So long before "edge play" was
Given a name
 Leather and chain, pleasure and pain.
Bondage and blood, I fed
 When I could;
So long - long its been
 I still Need as back then
The sweet-sweated blood,
 Freely bound, freely given;
The Hell of the marketplace
 Turns out to be heaven.

So it was, my heart beat faster, harder
 Blood pumped, hot, the Christian martyrs
Inexplicable, obscene, their blood stained scene
 Seemed somehow to draw my ardour
Rather than repellent terror.
 The lash struck, skin broken, no error.
The truth of it was cold and stark
 I was a Demon of the Dark
In league with - what? Some Devil-Eros?
 From the Hell of naked souls,
Had I stolen fire from Heaven's gold?

 I was a creature of the Night,
Leather, chains, I bound with fright,
 My volunteers, through long years.
Crucified St. Andrew's vented
 In a scream, orgasmic gasp, our
Sweat scent mingled with our tears,
 Blooded wounds mark that I was here.
Something missing, something known
 I felt it, smelled it, as she groaned
In ecstasy, and pain and lust
 Something more than human musk.
Aroused me as Fate knew it must.

 We pass untold those Gorean scenes
Mere rehearsal for my dreams
 As when I struck them, rush of pleasure
Became ecstatic, beyond all measure
(Such conceit, at least, I then treasured.)
 When I licked their fresh wounds clean
Something more than what was seen.
 Their blood itself transmuted me
Into what no phantasy
 Had yet described-- could not
Be denied. The experience was
 A blood-lust high.

 Then came Chrisie, daredevil girl
Up for any darkling swirl.
 She'd tower dived, she thrived
On thrill, I told her what I did
 And still -- she did not run away,
Asked instead I do my worst, my way.
 It seemed like years those months
We gained; months of pleasure and of
 Pain, and slid to edges, forbidden
Even by those who professed, that they
 Were ridden, rules apply, they said or die.
But common sense and primal lust were
 All our rules, except for Trust.
I controlled her breath, eyes flashing,
 Seething, mine or hers, we both
Fell heaving, into some trance,
 Came like a flood, At her throat, I drank
Her blood.

 Victoria, faithful, disciple still.
Pledged to my wishes, vermilion quill.
 She bound herself in oath to me and mine
By now all the pleasures I could find
 Were realized upon her flesh,
Leather lash, electric fetish, pierced
 Her nipples, blood-milk fest.
Magical beyond all bets. She was a gift
 And what one gets, one gives unto
That destined next.

 So, from the shadows I had come
As a demon, seeking one
 To demonstrate my demon fate
Upon.
 Came Teresa, not a saint,
Dying was her self-seen fate
 So she said, in mellow dread.
She wished to share the darkest side
 Pleasure I offered,
Beyond the
Measure of all she'd Known;
 She said she'd neither screamed
Nor moaned since a child; at that I
 Smiled--screams, I said, abandoned,
Wild, would come to her like a purr;
 Contented kitten, when, bound and
Bitten, her Being flowed into mine.
 She looked at me, though she was blind.
Unmoved I said, with my darkling spark,
 She'd see me crimson in the dark.
Indeed she did, in dayglow, stark.
 Hail Dark Khephra in his bark!
Throat, and arms, and chain and leather,
 In a web, my hidden tether
I held her fast, drank her life
 Expertly gashing flesh with knife.
Carved my name, and vanished, the flame
 Of her desire, addicted now to my fire,
Made Living On, her true desire.
 Demon gift. Sure and Swift.