Cordoba Nights Poem by Chris Zachariou

A fierce wind scorches Cordoba
tonight
lewd and shameful like a voracious lover.

Crawling in through doors ajar and open
windows
it caresses all hungry lovers entwined
the grateful old and the restless young.

Relief does not come easy
to anyone who sleeps alone tonight.

Forgotten thirsts and sinful cravings
stir in the breasts of shrivelled maidens;
bewildered and ashamed, they press their
palms in prayer for mercy to the Lord above.

Gasping teens in their love-starved beds
lie in sin and in abandon with hungry lthighs
shameless hands and aching flesh.

In this charged and sensual night
the unblemished bride-to-be
writhes in fever on her virgin bed
yearning for a sultry Moor—
heathen, steaming and obscene;

and she knows that tonight
is not a night for doubts and piety.
She wants to undo her gown
slither down on the rampant beast
and satisfy her unsated greed.

She shrieks and howls through the night
welcoming his frenzied thrusts
— exquisite pain, boundless pleasures—
and when morning comes she knows
she has traded her mortal soul for lust.