Dream Scheme Poem by Lorenzo Costigliolo

Dawn and defiance
die a dignified death
beneath the breath
of her bedroom delight:

Daring Dawn to become Night
and defiance to fight
the battle of wits
which she wins going away

she pushes him away
to stay awhile
tempted by her smile
and her own winsome ways.

He stays
unwilling
to succumb willingly
too willing to be won
too easily;

but, he stays, anyway
warming weakly to her will, still,
weekly, all through the night.

She cowers beneath his strength
but presses him firmly
downward with her daring
power, losing purposefully the fight
to be submerged in his
as he struggles senselessly.

He wants to want her to win,
the wanton wench, it seems,
but deathly petrified of her awesome power
pressing relentlessly against his own
wretched will,

she wraps herself around him
like fog
enveloping him entirely,
sucking from him his resistance-
baring his taut limbs
tensely turning from the temptation
but tempted to look upon her tenderly.

He shall not submit to her
(he says loudly)

as she drains him
stains him
with the blood of her love life-swelling
restrains him
with the blood of his life-

life swelling
with livid lust
ired by his rejection,

and she sinks her loving fangs
into the sinews
of his intact self.

He relents, assents, silently
reaching for her lascivious libido
pounding with resonant passion,
turns with widening eyes
to see the demon. dashing
his virtue to shreds
fully compromised
(he surmised)
stretched vainly to set himself free
from the fiery inferno
of his own sin–leaking sperm–
choked in the spume
gagged on the sputum
stifling the scream that ended the dream
that she began.