The master crept into the chamber
of his hangdog handmaiden’s shame
again and again.
There was no remorse.
The bruises on body
and soul got worse,
while his penitent wife
battled nightmares
in their marital bed,
plagued by guilty demons
shrouded in shadows
of sleep, which was never deep –
just a wallowing in the shallows.
Down the hall,
face against the wall,
I shudder, emit groans and sighs –
I will never see remorse in my master’s eyes.
Kim M. Russell, 2017
Luca Giordano (Naples 1634 – Naples 1705) – Tarquin and Lucretia –
My response to Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie Saturday Mix – February 10, 2017
Bastet is our host this week, with a reminder of the soliloquy – the most famous in the English language is probably Hamlet’s ‘To be, or not to be–that is the question…’ from Act III, Scene I.
She says that, by definition, a soliloquy is ‘an act of speaking one’s thoughts aloud when by oneself or regardless of any hearers, especially by a character in a play’. It’s a device that an author uses to help the audience get into the character’s thoughts and feelings.
The challenge is to give it a try, making it short – within 120 words max, prose or poem. I have rewritten a poem that was rejected recently to make it more of a soliloquy.
writing in north norfolk 
Awesome stuff. Iike the emotional dominance this has. Demands to be felt.
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Thank you!
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Thank you
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I think about how many women throughout history have experienced similar thoughts. It is a horrible thing to relegate a person to being a sex toy.
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Thanks for reading, Cara. There is quite a lot of reference to male dominance and rape in poetry going back to the Shakespeare and the Bible. You would hope that, in this day and age, men and women would be equal and there would be more respect but I hear about and read so many terrible stories, I don’t think anything has really improved.
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This is incredible.
And this is the first time I’ve noticed the “Morse (code)” inside “remorse.” Gives this poem a little extra twist.
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I hadn’t thought of that, Iris, and I can see what you mean!
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I’m so sorry your poem was rejected, but we gained by reading your moving soliloquy. This is a sore topic, which still follows us in our age of enlightenment. Nicely done.
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Thank you, Georgia, for your kind comments and the prompt that allowed me to share the poem.
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🙂 very welcome and again, great job.
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A hard subject heartbreakingly spun. I’m glad we got a chance to read this reworking of it.
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Thank you, Raivenne.
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Sorry your poem was rejected. Your rewrite is an extremely powerful statement on the misuse of power and the use of control. Some variables never seem to change.
Thank you for sharing this with us.
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Thank you, Lorraine.
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Brava.. 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹
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