Winners announced here!
Write a short poem that begins with one line from any Shakespeare play or poem. The poem should be two to four lines in length. Post it in the comments section below under your full name and general area of residence (“Bob Smith, Denver, Colorado”). Two entries allowed per poet.
When: Now until June 24, 2019 midnight EST. Winners Announced July 1, 2019.
Who: Anyone in the world, any age or background, may participate. From within the Society, anyone, including Advisory Board Members, not involved in judging the contest may participate. (If you are outside the United States, you will have to have a PayPal account or a bank that accepts U.S. checks to receive the prize money if you win.)
Prize: $100. You will also win this William Shakespeare pen donated by Joe Tessitore of New York City.
Judge: Advisory Board Members and selected poets.
Entry Fee: None
Examples: Our first example and the idea for this contest comes from Mr. Tessitore, who came up with this contest. Thank you, Joe!
In the Toilet
Brevity is the soul of wit,
yet on my brains I choose to sit,
long-winded, (here a pun, methinks!).
Small wonder, then, such humor stinks!
Your Pleasure My Delight
(Sonnet 65)
That in black ink my love may still shine bright,
I keep revising, till I get it right.
Then, meekly, I my verse to you recite:
Your pleasure brings me no end of delight.
Brevity is the soul of wit
Recite those that could not admit
I said, that have no wit nor time
To contrive a more eloquent rhyme
And thus I spent my nights sleepless
To hoard up all my wittiness
And that I failed I may admit
That brevity is the soul of wit
And many after me will try
To collect all the wit under the sky
To find out that wit can be
Only achieved through brevity
For Susie, My Editor
The lady doth protest too much, methinks:
“Fix this, change that, delete this line entire.”
My pride is wounded, and my spirit sinks,
until I read, “Ah, this part lights my fire!”
Modern Life
Lord, what fools these mortals be!
Hypnotized by huge TVs,
Glued to smart phones, or online.
Missing out on family time!
Bolaji S. Ramos, Lagos (Nigeria)
My Sleeping Mistress
My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun,
Sealed by Morpheus, and now wait I must
For this dreadful dusk to return her fun,
That again we may row our boat of lust.
A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse
That is of course unless the horse
Is the famous Mr. Ed
Time to Get a Dog
What light through yonder window breaks,
still hours yet, ’til day begins?
I spring from bed, now wide awake,
and catch my daughter, sneaking in!
You write good ones. The meter you use is very characteristic of Shakespeare, as is the suspense you build, until the last line where the crux of the stanza is revealed.
To be or not to be that? is the question.
The answer depends on what ‘that’ is.
If that’s an improper suggestion
I’m ever so pleased that it’s his.
To be or not? To be ‘that’ is the question,
Not to be or not, but to be that,
To be sick and to have indigestion,
I’d rather be this than have that.
As an Advisory Board Member I’m probably disqualified, but I couldn’t resist the temptation to submit something, anyway. From Richard III, V. IV:
“A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!”
Th’embattled, desperate King Richard said.
A nearby steed replied, “I’ll help, of course!”
And there he stood, the famous Mr. Ed!
Nice one, Willlllbur
James, I like it 🙂
Richard III, V. III
“Call up Lord Stanley, bid him bring his power.”
The playoffs are pro hockey’s finest hour.
Which team will win his cup? Which three will lose?
The Hurricanes, the Bruins, Sharks or Blues?
(As my third submission this one doesn’t count and it doesn’t conform with the instructions anyway:)
Thrfr snce brvty’s the sl of wt
I’ll kp ths shrt ‘nd swt
Brevity is the soul of wit
Pity many don’t have it.
Wow Sir fantastic!!!
Brevity is the soul of wit,
Yet free verse is so long-winded!
Perhaps it should be cut back a bit,
Or better yet, rescinded.
Poems written by Mae Leslie, Houston, TX
Listen Silently
Give every man thy ear, but not thy voice.
(That is, if you have a choice.)
When a situation might turn violent,
is it best to stay silent?
Stage Fright
All the world’s a stage;
we’re actors without a wage.
We miss cues and bray,
some lines we can’t bear to say.
“Why am I a fool?”
The liberal asked his tool.
“Because you too grow erect
Whenever your lusts rise, unchecked!”
Now is the winter of our discontent,
And I don’t like yours; away from my tent,
For mine is more pure, mine’s more unique:
Immune to a cure, abstruse and oblique.
Gloucester, from Richard III
What a great idea for a competition! Love it – and already some wonderful entries; very imaginative!
True Love
What light through yonder window breaks?
From deepest sleep, true love awakes.
The coldest hour is put to flight
and vanquished is the darkest night.
Alex Andy Phuong, Alhambra, CA
“Signifying Nothing”
Existentialism is like pessimism
And nihilism is like cynicism
Be more like Pollyanna instead of Macbeth
And enjoy life until the very last breath
“All That Glitters is Not Gold”
Gold might be as yellow as the sun
But being wealthy is not always fun
Treasure food and eat instead
Or else those who do not eat will be surely dead
Can you cite what poems of Shakespeare you used for the first lines of your poems?
Hi Esther
“Signifying Nothing” comes from a soliloquy in Macbeth in which Macbeth says that life is meaningless in Act V of the play.
“All that glitters is not gold” comes from a line found in The Merchant of Venice.
Thank you for asking!
Best wishes,
Alex Phuong
Hi Esther,
I honestly think that I misunderstood the instructions for this contest.
The titles of my poems, “Signifying Nothing” and “All That Glitters is Not Gold” both come from Shakespeare.
The lines that follow (4 lines each) are my own original writing.
I apologize if I entered this competition incorrectly.
Thank you!
Sincerely,
Alex Andy Phuong
“Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow”
I shall return the money that I borrow
This, for aye, has been the charlatan’s old song
For what he takes, he’ll not return for long.
Hahaha…super!
Thank you
David Watt, Canberra, Australia
Love and Listen
Love alters not with his brief hour and weeks,
And works for introverts, as well as geeks,
Who may not say a lot … but when they do!
Each word of passion resonates as true.
Play On
If music be the food of love,
go blow scorned horn at flirtle dove
and blast a brassy raspberry feast
to hex the dish of rakish beast.
Hark!
Listen to many, speak to a few,
Grok all around you, see only one,
Seek ye the reason, glistening pure,
The light in your heaven, She is your Sun.
A Better Time for Camping
Now is the Winter of our Discontent,
Not the time to set up your tent.
If you want to enjoy a pleasant breeze,
As you settle yourself beneath the trees,
The summery sun of York you’ll find
Is much more settling to the mind.
MacMutt
OUT, damn Spot! OUT, I say!
Pee on parquet – thou shalt pay!
Rap Master Brutus
I came to bury Caesar, not to praise him
I’m gonna fiddle and faddle and then I’ll daze him
He’ll be lost in my rhymes and when I’m through
He’s gonna look around and say ‘Et tu?’
Great! Funny as well!
Global Warming?
Now is the winter of our discontent,
Where is the heat? Methinks ‘tis spent!
Jarek Zawadzki, Gliwce, Poland
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long there’s nothing you can get for free.
Brilliant with all the puns implicit.
Sorry, I wasn’t writing a poem beginning with a Shakespeare line. I thought I was commenting on the poem written by Joe Tessitore of New York City,
He smote the sledded Polacks on the ice.
Because the sledded Polacks were not nice.
He cut off their heads.
And they fell of their sleds.
“Should have quite while ahead”’s my advice.
In purity of manhood stand upright
to defend flag, country, and friends.
In pride of motherhood give love and light
to our children on whom the future depends.
We are such stuff as dreams are made on, rounded with a little sleep,
and yet every day I have a schedule and a job to keep!
When I consider everything that grows
Jack’s stalk apposes Pinocchio’s nose.
“Now, gods stand up for bastards!”/
Make hearts -weak and shattered-
Strong and mended. Let us rise/
Above our curs’ed lives… /
Dust off the shadow of the night,/
And bathe us in the purest light!
The chaste palate of love, O’ Cupid, know
Thee not…in breathless moans, true joy is gone!
O’ angel of love, tune thy sweet cello…
If music be the feed of love, play on!
“Our little life is rounded with a sleep,”
Framed by enigmas fathomlessly deep,
Like, “Why do socks from washers disappear?”
Or, “Why would folks vote Democrat next year?”
While Hindus ponder how atman is Brahma,
I ask how people chose that man Obama!
Once more unto the breach.
Of mice and men who boast and preach,
and promise lies beyond their reach.
A foul against free speech!
Go thou, and fill another room in hell,
reserved for politicians there to dwell.
Those who’s nature, like sick pigs, spew their swill.
And spread their lies to news-room spies, to spill.
2B or not 2B, that is the question
The driver faced upon his wife´s suggestion
That in the mall´s garage, he´d lost his way,
and needed to ascend to level “A.”
Quality, Martin.
That’d get my vote just for sheer innovation and imagination.
Monty Phillips . . France.
Not age, but sorrow, over me hath power.
What sorrow? That this new age seems to’ve decreed
That Verse be ‘free’; and will henceforth endower
Future ages with notions that Verse be ‘freed’.
1st line from: ‘A Lover’s Complaint.
He that knows better how to tame a shrew,
May have his hashtag settled by MeToo.
David Watt, Canberra, Australia
Bewitching Bread
“The wheel is come full circle: I am here.”
Said Hansel, lacking any trace of fear.
“The bread was just too good to waste for crumbs;
We’ll enter the first candy house which comes.”
Keltie-Kewan Young, Auckland, New Zealand
“In the sea of green”
In the sea of green a Little tree sprouts
Breath of air flowing, surviving and flourishing
The course of true love never did run smooth
A quiet snaps in the sea of green.
“The symphony”
The harsh sun above can only speckle through the wall of leaves
For One touch of nature makes the whole world kin
While Trees sway through notes of wilted leaves fall like music
A symphony we may never halt.
Keltie-Kewan Young, Auckland, New Zealand
“In the sea of green”
In the sea of green a Little tree sprouts
Breath of air flowing, surviving yet perishing
For “The course of true love never did run smooth”
A quiet snaps in the sea of green.
“The symphony”
The harsh sun above can only speckle through the wall of leaves
Yet only “One touch of nature makes the whole world kin”
While Trees sway through notes of wilted leaves fall like music
A symphony we may never halt.
Keltie-Kewan Young, Auckland, New Zealand
“In the sea of green”
In the sea of green a Small tree sprouts
A Breath of air flowing, surviving yet perishing
For “The course of true love never did run smooth”
A quiet branch snaps in the sea of green.
“The symphony”
The harsh sun above can only speckle through the wall of leaves
Yet only “One touch of nature makes the whole world kin”
While Trees sway through notes of wilted leaves fall like music
A symphony we may never halt.
Burnaby, BC, Canada
“A Trove, by any Other Name”
My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
The world’s treasure thou art, in time, for me
To find, through seven tides, through gale and breeze —
My love, an ‘X’ shalt I mark down for thee.
She is spherical like a globe
And empirical and bold
Shall truth be told
She is gold
Sweet economy in its retort to Dromio’s
anti-Irish (inter alia) sentiment.
By Avery Miller, USA
Who wakes me from my flowery bed
With funny face and downy head?
No changeling of a fairy curse,
But my dear baby come to nurse.
Christina Lang, Temecula, California
For My Love
Love is a spirit all compact of fire.
Tell me, my love, what is thy desire?
For mine is to give all that you ask,
No request too grand or too great a task.
to be or not to be?, that is the question…
i fall into disgrace not knowing my destiny or fate
will the arrow pierce my open heart or will i soar above
this charred and chastened plight
tis better not to think too deep and wait upon god’s grace I reap
Rob Crisell, Temecula, CA
Past All Surgery
Those are pearls that were his eyes;
His knees, of pure titanium;
Of steel do his hips comprise;
But clay fills up his cranium.
To the Invisible Spirit of Wine
But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the vengeful morn which flings bright bolts,
Enpiercing bloodshot eyes. My head – it aches!
Once more the devil wine ‘gainst me revolts.
Honorificabilitudinitatibus
Evaporates with the combustion of cannabis.
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thy breath more sweet than the summer’s breeze is,
The flow’rs, of summer to lilac blooms sway
Whilst all the world’s lips wish to thy rose kiss.
Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
So too dost my blood like an ocean surge,
My heart,–(happy tide), twice daily doth soar
Sweet thought when eyes thirsty on beauty splurge.
Urinal
This wins him, liver and all.
Takes him to the bathroom stall.
His pants unzipped, his colors fly.
Being drunk is better than dry.
Concussion
O, full of scorpions is my mind!
Their pincers on my cerebellar side.
They cannot let my thalamus go.
Neural stimulation evermore.
Monty Phillips . . . France
To make the weeper laugh, the laugher weep . .
Would seem, at first, a hopeless thing to try.
But it can be achieved in just one sweep;
A tragicomedy to wet the eye.
1st line from: ‘A Lover’s Complaint’.
Beauty
“For beauty lives with kindness”
Hear ye now! Let praises ring
for magic in the early spring,
and, dwell again with gentleness.
Sally Cook — Western New York
Joan’s Dilemma
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot,
I doubt she wants to do a lot
Of keeling to a boiling pot
For, if too cold, who’ll eat a lot?
This line from Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act V, Scene 2 – Winter
Sally Cook – Western New York
New Politics
O brave new world, that has such people in’t! —
Who shout and scream, have tantrums, and then spin’t —
Think this the way to change that crucial minute.
Just can’t get over that they didn’t win’t,
Above line from final act of The Tempest.
Tomorrow? and tomorrow? and tomorrow?
This worry-fretting fear, when will it end?
Oh, what will happen to me? Joy, or sorrow?
Anxiety has never been my friend!
Shakespeare Overweight
Though Rome in Tiber melt, and the wide arch
Of the ranged empire fall,
This bulge upon my belt, in its demarche
Proves an impregnable wall.
A Shakespearean Problem Solved
When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,
I turn for solace to a sweet girl’s sighs.
Bruce Wren, Chicago, Illinois
Bruce Wren, Chicago, Illinois
Bruce Wren, Chicago, Illinois
Physics > Metaphorical Language
“O, were mine eyeballs into bullets turn’d!”
‘Tis the most metal thing that one could say.
Consider, though, that eyeballs are not metal
And rather squish than shoot amid a fray.
A Daughter, Ravished
“Die, die, Lavinia, and thy shame with thee.”
O, my shame died when they who raped me died;
My father’s shame could not die while I lived.
He wrote in me his shame and burned the book.
Rachel Kohler, Corvallis, Oregon
Lucy- West Texas
“Thus with a kiss I die”
I drowned in blooming roses and soft lips
But how dare I forget that those roses have thorns, and those lips have teeth.
I’m sorry! ^ This one was an accident, I sent it too soon.
“Thus with a kiss I die…”
Swimming in blooming roses and strawberry lips
Drowning—How dare I forget that those roses have thorns and those lips have teeth.
“My tongue-tied Muse in manners holds her still”
For I no longer remember who I write these love poems to
But I hold my breath, bite my tongue, and write her some daffodils
-Lucy, West Texas
I didn’t read the instructions carefully I just wrote a poem based on a
Shakespeare line.
Now I have seen the lights of foreign ports —
Strange constellations to my wondering eyes —
And gazed on glittering golden royal courts,
Bright mirrors of the sun beneath the skies.
And in the warmth of homes in frozen lands,
By glowing hearth fires I have broken bread,
And in the northern sky I’ve seen the dance
That living flames in strange wild measures tread.
But giving sweeter pleasure than them all
A comforter for travelers in the night
Now comes to meet me with her welcome call —
“That light we see is burning in my hall.”
The quotes are there only to show where the Shakespeare line is.
A woman moved, is like a fountain troubled,
but one that’s not will quench our thirst
like waters from the Pierian Spring,
wherefrom our wisdom’s nursed.
Today we put forth tender leaves of hope,
but hence a convocation of politic worms
will pompously start nibbling at our scope,
till we submit to its voracious terms.
Fire, Bright
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
If that’s life, well! I can’t find it in me to worry
Burn out! Yes, bravo! What a masterpiece of fate!
Hand me that knife! I’ll show you just how bright I bleed
Golden Rule
And chastise with the valor of my tongue
I will, for you have left your mind behind,
By all the stars, we are queens!
Destined to reign, destined to rule
Fortune forbid my outside hath not charmed her
In her fragile mind my glowing look doth speak
to her and her alone.
Yet were I were to him, as she wishes to be for me!
God has given you one face, and you make yourself another.
Did you think He would approve?
Your altered declaration
Is so far from His creation.
Burnaby, BC, Canada
“Mistress’ Eyes,” a Haiku
My mistress’ eyes are
Nothing like the sun, for they
Shine through dark of night
When forty winters shall besiege thy brow
And mirror image doth shame thou gaze
In youthful splendor lieth old age now
Thine beauty’s treasure bereft of praise
SONNET CLIII
Cupid laid by his brand and fell asleep:
His love-kindling fire I trieth to keep
I, sick withal, sought Match.com
And thither findith another creep
With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come –
Or lacking mirth, at least no days too glum.
Old wrinkles have I plenty, more’s the shame.
Glad days or glum, the wrinkles always came.
Rebecca Jessup
Belfast, Maine
“With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come” is from Merchant of Venice.
Tis’ but a scratch
The continuum of time and space is yet safe
O’er there! Tis’ a butterfly, one I wish to catch
Oh no! A plague o’ both our futures!
To weep is to make less the depth of grief
Petty tears wasted on a falsehood
Ornamental stars abbreviating
the infinity of an unrelenting black night
HEAR MY SOUL SPEAK :
WITH MY UTMOST DEVOTION FOR YOU TO HEAL,
SOLACE OF TIME WHEN YOU NEED ME.
THEY CAN’T DECEIT UNTIL YOU, ME ARE WE.
HEAR MY SOUL SPEAK :
WITH MY UTMOST DEVOTION FOR YOU TO HEAL,
SOLACE OF TIME WHEN YOU NEED ME,
THEY CAN’T DECEIT UNTIL YOU, ME ARE WE.
DEVATRAI JHA
In black ink my love may still shine bright
For though feelings pour out of the vial of words
In my inkpot, my quill stirrs the beauty of night
As the moon’s crescendo sings of thy ethereal face
DEVATRAI JHA
The lunatic, the lover and the poet
All speak of the same crime:
If thou hath not lived the moment
Thou shall wilt like a rose under societal paradigm
Martin Hill Ortiz, Ponce, PR
The Quintessence of Dust and Pepperoni
O! That this too solid flesh would melt!
So that I, again, might fit this belt.
Nay, I yearn to yield to pizzas hot:
I will happy be and healthy, not.
Martin Hill Ortiz, Ponce, PR
All That Glitters Is Not Gold’s Gym
To take arms against a sea of troubles,
Free from here, I’ll brave a bracing swim.
Sigh! With weary grunts, my sweating doubles:
I am trapped inside a stench-filled gym.
My love as deep; the more I give thee
Precious as the light; as pure as thou love can be
The sun, the moon, the heaven; all can see
That you are a god’s gift sent only to me
As I do live by food, I met a fool–
who never did learn anything in school,
but still pretends to rule the world entire,
the bloviating, greedy, fat, old liar!
(First line from As You Like It.)
Rick Blum, Bedford, MA
Advice for a Chaste Critic
Get thee to a nunnery
Seek shelter from the swarm
Of my incessant punnery
You dub a blunderstorm
The Pallor of Money
To thine own self be true
When others scoff at you
Just flaunt your orange hue
And blond hair gone askew
One’s Own
“Most worthy comfort, now my greatest grief”
To Jack Jones I answer not, but just may well be
Drenched impressions of this name, in the ocean I am left and recurringly remain
Submerged in what I now call comforts betrayal, cradled in its embrace, it has kept me
Instead of mounting barbed steed
As frightful adversaries bleed
He capers nimbly to display
The pleasing nature of his way.
The undiscovered country calls
From tiny nooks and open halls
To souls that for a solace yearn
To dwell in peace, not to return.
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
This is the case for all we hold most dear
In war, in work, and ev’ry endeavour
It must be said, the leaner the better
Macbeth: Act IV, Scene I
“The witches”
“Adder’s fork, and blind-worm’s sting,”
and biting snubs from blinded grubs
The honey on their tongues belie
the frying frogs that flee the pyre.
Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,
No Benedict am I, nor a Mumford,
And not a Shakespeare either, though I try
To use my wit while remaining most kind
Ruth Lintiso, Maryland
Fair Is Foul
Fair is foul and foul is fair
Look at this world’s paradoxical affair
Chooses light but sleeps with despair
Wise
All that glisters is not gold
Discern and be wise, know what is not told
Open up your eyes and see this life
Choose the truth, be not ignorant of the lies
Love is a Smoke (from Romeo and Juliet)
Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs;
But love alone can’t make your spirits rise.
Only faith in Existence brings to you
The peace you must have to pull yourself through.
David Paul Behrens
La Verne, California
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments.(Sonnet 116)
Where blind eyes speaks of the truth behind,
scathing in the despair of love.
1.
I am that merry wanderer of the night,
The most conducive time for making love,
When poets’ fancy takes unbridled flight,
And Cupid’s dart wounds lovely moon above.
2.
My parts had power to charm a sacred nun;
The fire of youth she had suppressed for long,
Till she her coyness did decide to shun,
John Donne had proved her notion to be wrong.
Sarban Bhattacharya, India
Sarban, I have no idea who you are, or might be, but I found your contributions here to be very evocative. Congrats.
Title of the first poem: A Merry Wanderer .(The first line is from ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’)
Title of the second poem: Spiritual Love. (The first line is from ‘A Lover’s Complaint’)
Thank you C.B. Anderson for appreciating me.
Summertime
from Sonnet 18
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day
That’s ninety-eight-point-six degrees and humid?
I wouldn’t want you any other way,
Especially when I’m hot to trot and tumid.
Stalwart
from As You Like It
All the world’s a stage
Where players play their parts;
Stand, and act your age,
Denouncing timid hearts.
C.B., this reminds me of the last verse in a poem I wrote in 1972.
Shakespeare said the world’s a stage
And we are all just players.
Some of us don’t like the wage
And so are just spectators.
Confutation
from Cymbeline
If she be furnish’d with a mind so rare
As to bring silence to my own true voice,
Then she has commandeered the very air,
and yielding thereto is the only choice.
The Spirit of the Matter
from Hamlet
The head is not more native to the heart
Than crazy hearts are good at cogent thinking,
And neither is a poet’s crafted art
Immune from episodes of heavy drinking.
Ha! Excellent!
Summer Becomes Her
Shall I compare thee to a summers day?
A gust of warm wind is thine ire
And as it bloweth, the sun doth shine
Thy gaze like rays of fire
The Almighty Herself
Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more
You cry has last reached heaven’s door
The Almighty Herself has shone her light
On you. ‘Tis the end of female plight.
Bahrain/India
Just for the sheer sophistication of the word-play . . I hereby declare Martin Rizley’s ‘2b or not 2b’ to be the winner of this competition (at least in my psyche).
Healing Cuts
Not a jot more, my lord.
Cut’s deep as a sword.
Love’s scalpel has begun
As hearts converge into one.
Taylor Crosby, Crawfordsville, IN
“Keep It Inside”
Look like the innocent flower
Bottle up your fiery rage
Unless you wish all to cower
As you depart your self-made cage
“A Story That Ought Never Be Told”
A wretched soul, bruised with adversity
Whose heart is plagued by hatred of herself
Because her mind believes with certainty
That her story shouldn’t have left the shelf
Roy E. Peterson, San Angelo, Texas
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thine hair is more like a dry stack of hay.
Then when I came to embrace upon it,
Pitchforks changed the tenor of my sonnet.
Roy E. Peterson, San Angelo, Texas
Unthrifty loveliness, why dost thou spend
Hundreds of dollars on what thou cans’t mend?
Thou paintest thine hair a weird shade of blue.
Thine face ash appeareth, a ghastly hue.
In line 2 it should be “can’t” instead of “cans’t.”
Over hill, over dale,
A young woman, frail,
Wanders the world,
Heart unfurled.
Lily Canniff, Arizona
Since only two poems can be entered into the competition, the first two poems are my entries in the contest and third one is just for fun. My thanks to my wife for helping edit the second poem. — Mark Stone, Ohio, U.S.A.
The lady doth protest too much, me thinks.
She still contests the vote and says it stinks
that Trump won in an underhanded way.
But who paid for the FISA dossier?
I loved not so wisely, instead much too well.
The lesions ensuing continue to swell.
The decades of carefree, insouciant mingling
have left me all crusty and itchy and tingling.
Good night. Good night. Our parting is sweet sorrow.
The ousted Senator leaves town tomorrow.
Instead of draining it, he turned the swamp
into a hot tub where he loved to romp.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And here in Maine, the buds are weak and few
Until mid-June. The winds of winter stay
Too long, too long. Brief Summer’s skies–so blue!
Christopher Calvin, Mojokerto, Indonesia
The Day for The Bride
Maiden pinks, of odour faint,
I sense flourish day, and nature’s bliss
True sweet existence followed by song of birds
Angel ascends, bell rings, Here comes the bride
Christopher Calvin, Mojokerto, Indonesia
Bad Wind Away from Today
Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly:
Sing me joy, yell me love, enjoy this life
As we blow winter, bring wind of autumn, light of spring
As our friends not fiend, may these times alive and live
Shall I Compare Thee To A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream?
shall I compare thee to A summer-‘s day?
Will’s Night’s Dream fairy Mid-dle of the play
get to Bottom of who lover maybe
sonnet’s secret Dark Lady mystery
Playing On The Hunger For Love
if music be the food of love, play on
words going off the neck-tar of the guitar scale son (et
Welsh-Harping on about a banquet of the key senses
the playing’s the thing to air-on-a-g-string-out her defences
Unloving Insight
I love nothing in the world so much as you-is not that strange?
Till I recall love’s eyes-
Which never see the blind-
Or dumb or lame.
Thy Taxes, Citizen (Direct Un-Deposit Advice)
To thine own self be true,
Yet by unfortunate report thy livelihood disown;
With taxing labor file down thy figure too,
Till thy remains are worse than gross.
E. A. Akindele, Edmonton, AB, Canada
I.
Cowards die many times before their deaths
And cease from life to draw a single breath.
To die in shame is murder to the soul,
But oh, to live for love is bliss beyond!
II.
All that glitters is not gold
And all that fails is not folly
For by fate, good and bad
Shall be revealed consequently.
(Pericles, Prince of Tyre, Prologue)
“Et bonum quo antiquius, eo melius,”
But can we hope, in this now fallen age
Where Culture shakes as Marxists rage,
That even Shakespeare might deliver us?
(The Rape of Lucrece)
“Shall rotten death make conquest of the stronger?”
Never! While Faith still lives and hearts are pure,
The flame of Western triumph shall endure
And courage strengthen where the odds are longer.