TO BOOT

Tags

erotic, innuendo, love, Metaphysical, metapoetic, philosophical, poem, poetry, postmodern, Reader, Sexual innuendo, sexual symbolism, Shakespeare, woman, wordplay, writing

TO BOOT

I was reciting Elizabethan poetry to you
feeding you metaphoric fruit
for your tired old, enervated, postmodern soul

though our connection
was cerebral, and relationship Platonic

I wondered about the power of
the imagination to be truly transformative

and what
you might be led to by way
of reciprocal response
(or as it stands on the page:
“response reciprocal”)

for if we are working towards
a sudden juxtaposition driven
by conceit metaphysical

where the displacement can work
through idiom
most physical, metaphor
down and dirty

connecting us
every humour, every level
and
game-changer, to boot.

LORD OXO

Tags

poem, poetry, satire, Shakespeare, The Earl of Oxford, utopia

LORD OXO

Lord Oxo loves fiction
finds it
much superior
to real life
(especially when the axe
or noose regally awaits)

is not
a patch
on utopia

as every soon-to-be
cultural commissar
would say

ROOTS

Tags

blues, Colonialism, Elizabeth I, poem, poetry, rock music, Shakespeare, wordplay

ROOTS

nothing more
poetic
than feedback
he persuaded himself

the musicians of the Court
furiously jamming
duel and dialogue
all night
between lute
and zither

those crazy
licks and riffs
hot Queen Liz and Earl Vere
tripping the light fantastic

if only
we had the wherewithal
to renounce things unplugged
go the one true electric

get that sound to carry
from Palace to Country House
to Kingston plantation

Oh Virginia
your madrigals

and further south, down in the Delta
the music be raw
yet royal blue

could shake this little merry island
down to its foundations

do serious headbanger damage
to Shakespeare (whoever he be)
and
all his classical roots

ALL THE WARNINGS

Tags

Britain, Earl of Oxford, Humanity, identity, King Crimson, philosophical, poem, poem poetry political moral, poetry, Prince, Reader, Shakespeare. Sir Thomas More, slavery, United States, wordplay, writing

ALL THE WARNINGS

All the warning signs were there
as my eye caught sight
of Lord Oxo, chatting amiably
with Sir Thomas, Lear, Prince and King Crimson

there where the Avon
becomes the Mersey
flows into the Thames
flows into
the Tiber, the Hudson
and the Ganges

sitars appeared, struck up a duel/duet
with lutes and zithers

music that could not drown out
the cries of suffering from the bowels of ships
heading for a new world, where the
dream is one of a power that can
green-transform everything

and there
engraved in stone, another
false monument, this to
no mere actor-dramatist, but
to the principles of humanity that
embody in
eagle-feathered, golden perfection
the great holy light of our human enlightenment

but
by a backdoor, by that same tawdry sea-city
the beauty of another music now returns
and
our Lord’s scenes, scripted and acted
are framed in such a way
that the metaphors of
our being are
rendered literal

Sir Thomas with a word or two about Plato,
Papacy, and the nature of the ideal State.

Under the spotlight for his soliloquy. Easier
to listen, easier to read
than author or reader
forced to follow from the heart of the flames.

ELSINORE

Tags

Hamlet, poem, poetry, Shakespeare, writing

ELSINORE

when curiosity
took me to Elsinore
was surprised and
outright disappointed
not to hear

that the castle remained haunted:
that the entire cast
of characters
killed off in act five
still managed to walk
the battlements, stand
behind the areas

plot and connive, occasionally philosophize,
tell us
of the beauty of Heaven
the horrors
of Hell

and whether
if they had another chance, could
do it all again
had a lesser author whose words
did not dissect them, make light
of (and heavy
with) their humanity

do it differently
forgo the sacrifice which
our catharsis
forever demands

SIMULATION

Tags

Hamlet, poem, poetry, Shakespeare, simulation

SIMULATION

Hamlet’s suspicion is that it’s all just a simulation
watching the Murder of Gonzago
kind of helped put
that in his head

and the constantly changing architecture
of Elsinore, not
to speak of the clothing
and the fact that when he once
tested a decidedly dicey
piece of battlement
it crumbled in a manner
which brought into question
the nature of the reality
of the castle, and ergo
the nature of his own
much philosophized being
and narrative itself

for who
but an author unreservedly pernicious,
quote unGodlike
would allow his Uncle to succeed
Ophelia to drown

and Laertes to strike
a killer blow despite his own ineptitude

before we
even begin to consider

the defeating applause
as all
goes dark

as story ends

MR SHAKESPEARE

Tags

Britain, British, ENGLAND, poem, poem poetry political moral, poetry, satire, Shakespeare

MR SHAKESPEARE

poor Mr Shakespeare
tripping on all
that fairy juice

somehow
you got it into your head
that England
is real

with the benefit of History
I am here
to disabuse you
of that notion

to show what has become of
your garden island

sinking slowly
into make-believe sea

BACKYARD LITERARY GENIUS (1)

Tags

Drama, Shakespeare, wordplay, writing

Gonna write a play featuring a philosopher with a sword. He’s gonna fight with a jock/playa crossing blades and then kill him and then kill the dude who killed his father and then die coz there’s no one left to kill. Am looking for a title/name for the hero. Any ideas? I was thinking, Hamnet or Halmet or maybe Hamlet even.

IN EVERY ASPECT

Tags

love, poem, poetry, Shakespeare

IN EVERY ASPECT

Sun, Moon:
you I can and
will compare
to anything

be like
Shakespeare, Whitman
(who contradicted himself
so openly)

but myself, the fingers
on the keyboard, around
the pen
the ghost
in this machine

myself I will
not readily compare, am
nothing without you

but of all your beauty
inspiration

the vague translation into
word
of desire

of which, in every aspect,
the delayed effect

FURTHER POEM FOR METELLUS CIMBER (A CONTINUED MEDITATION UPON THE IDEA OF POLITICAL IDENTITY)

Tags

Humanity, identity, poem, poem poetry political moral, poetry

FURTHER POEM FOR METELLUS CIMBER
(A CONTINUED MEDITATION UPON THE IDEA OF
POLITICAL IDENTITY)

we played our part
wrote a poem
did the dead

and still
we were overlooked

left
by the wayside

no high-
profile death, political
revenge
torture to
restore public health
make everything sacrosanct,
ideal again, iconic

no
throat slit or simply
trampled by the crowd as
it fleet-footed it past

Mark Anthony’s words still
ringing in their ears like
an air raid siren

you can call us
Meier

no one
remembers that fat joke now

and as for
air raid simile as deliberate anachronism

just Google “postmodern triumphal
procession, Guernica, Berlin, air war
and the politics of fascism”

I’ll upload
something there for
you to read
(moot point where
Cimber’s ghost is concerned
what Goering said
how imperial he looked
in that
overblown uniform

though not
a shade of
purple to be seen)