Posts: 1,139
Threads: 466
Joined: Nov 2013
On the twelfth day of Christmas, the Pig Pen gave to me
twelve evening masques,
eleven mixed messages,
ten written futures,
nine fallen cities,
eight snuffed-out candles,
seven strange names,
six ancient kings,
five struggling moms,
four vanished kids,
three religious pamphlets,
two cash gifts, and
a carol on a broadsheet!
In honor of Twelfth Night, post something by or about Shakespeare.
Posts: 751
Threads: 408
Joined: May 2014
Knocking the Bard
I find more poetry
in the plays
than play in the poetry,
but I am an unfair critic;
jealous of a time
when invented contractions
were hip
a time before love poems were cliche.
Under those conditions
I fancy my Muse
would have succumbed
long ago.
Posts: 1,185
Threads: 250
Joined: Nov 2015
His Point
Names mean things. Ludwig van Beethoven
(whose name just means “Lewie from Holland”)
stood Dutch uncle to
all composers ever after but he said of Bach
(whose name means “creek” or “brook”)
that Bach is more like an ocean.
Is.
Which brings us to that other member
of the Muses’ pantheon
William Shakspur - or “Shakespeare,” as
it reads more tellingly
but spur or speare the man
has a point. His little comedies
his histories, all drawn from life
or anyway conceptions of it
taking a commonplace of
slightly post-Viking Danish politics
and making it retell
an educated man caught up
in family biology unsure
of what blood demands
and what he owes to it.
Spur or speare we get
dead William’s point
and Bach’s catchy rivulet
upon a common theme like Jesus
joy of man’s desiring or His passion
gets around us and we can’t
not enjoy or dam his oceanic
melody out of our minds.
And old Dutchman Lewie
also setting joy to music–
points we can’t evade because
they impale us harder than
a poisoned rapier and we die
immortally.
Non-practicing atheist
