Poet’s notes: Venus in Furs is an 1870 novella and part of Love, the first volume of the Legacy of Cain by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch. The character Severin von Kusiemski asks to be the slave of a woman he is infatuated with, encouraging her to treat him progressively in more degrading ways.
Texte: I am tired, I am weary
I could sleep for a thousand years
A thousand dreams that would awake meVelvet Underground
I can’t look into her eyes now
For fear of seeing what I see
Forbidden glances ask me how
I could do those things that change me
But love reflects only the past
A place I can no longer be
I made my choice the die is cast
Extracts of love I found in dreams
The whispers I belong to her
The brutal heart that heard my screams
The love, my own Venus in fur
Embraced by silken kisses; that
Love and pain combine in a blur
She sees my soul and where it’s at
The woman who gives all she can
Her strength as I yield to combat
Yet still, she sees only a man
© JG Farmer 2018
Form: Terza Rima