SHAKING THE SPEAR…
Shakespeare’s virus lives;
The infection, a syndrome:-
The oppressor pleased:-
Today’s stage, shadowed;
New Orthellos infected:
The oppressor pleased:-
Let's be protective;
Our kids can’t be Desmonas,
Nor we, Orthellos:-
With self-injections,
Let us wipe out the syndrome:
Pleasing liberty:-
In recovery,
Our Desmonas mothering:
Liberty birthing:-
Written: August 28, 2026, for a contest sponsored by Brian Strand
Note: Creating a clerihew suite (a connected series) allows to convey a hilarious biographical narrative or analyze a historical event from several perspectives. Because clerihews are so brief, connecting three or four of them creates a lighthearted narrative arc.
********************
The teenage William Shakespeare
found himself steered by sudden fear
When 'Anne Hathaway' said 'We are to be wed'
he packed up his quills & to London he fled
When writing tragedies at 'The Globe'
he wore a truly fancy velvet robe
However it caught fire during 'Henry VIII'
burning the theater right down to the gate
The aging wordsmith William Shakespeare
felt the English language was so austere
So he invented the words eyeball and swagger
just to find a rhyme for a bloody dagger
When it came time to bury William Shakespeare
his lawyer shed a real dubious tear
For he left his wife no money or bread
only his clearly favorite second-best bed
If Romeo and Juliet could meet
And mate enmasque a thousand years ago,
Then our short period of trick and treat
Could generate a love none would outgrow.
For we hid not behind a frightened mask,
Nor sought protection cleverly disguised;
With eager joy we warmed up to the task
And found ourselves most pleasantly surprised.
Discovery and moonlit interlude
Replaced by coffee bars and taxi rides;
No balcony to climb, no attitude
To change, our long-developed love abides.
The Bard wrote “star-crossed lovers” with his pen,
But we are not; let’s do it all again!
THE COMEDIANS’ TRAGEDY
My role is that of the Court Jester
also known as the Tudor Harlequin Clown,
I am much more than just a set of jokes
in front of audience members.
I wish to be a Shakespearean actor
but that is a fact nobody remembers.
To perform in tragedies,
to make the spectators not laugh but frown.
Anything from playing Romeo to Macbeth
while wearing his bloody crown!
The theatre life I want! Not the court life which is
as cold as the air in December.
I have tried time and time again but not prevailed.
I need to succeed by this new September.
I auditioned for many characters,
even Lady Macbeth while wearing her bloody gown!
At last, a new audition has come
up for a new Shakespeare play!
If I fail, what shall
I do hereafter?
After acting my heart out for the audition,
my mouth turned to the taste of morello.
To hear what I had been cast as that day;
am I bound to a life of laughter?
I find myself playing the
Clown from the tragedy of Othello…
OMNISCIENT OMISSION
My poem forcibly removed from the
text book by a higher authority.
Like a deleted scene cut from of a
film reel of an old movie.
To be lost and never found again.
The themes of the anthology no
longer being fully explored or
understood.
How history can repeat itself.
Comparable to the Nazis.
All copies must be destroyed.
The words I spoke
and the words I wrote.
Torn from the pages.
Torn from my hand.
Torn from the student’s minds.
Ironic how English teachers do not
understand the English of my work,
yet they teach the violent tragedies of Shakespeare…
“How shall I murder him, Iago?”
“Romeo must not live.”
“Macbeth does murder sleep."
Now, all that Remains is a page as
blank as closed minds…
“This page is left intentionally blank.”
I sometimes wonder if Shakespeare cried
when he wrote a scene where the main character died.
Or was he so consumed by his art
that he could keep fiction and reality apart,
and write those torturous scenes perfectly dry-eyed?
Companion poem
I sometimes wonder who was there
the day Shakespeare finished writing King Lear.
Was he at home with his Annie?
Or was he drunk off his fanny
in the Tabard Inn, stroking the dark lady's hair?
To deny oneself of the things you are fond of
Long conversations, goofy talks
little candy of love and care
the melody of understanding each other
the wait for the phone to ring.
It's a shakespeare tragedy,
Falling out of the loop
Riding the cycle the wrong way
just to stand out and keep it cool.
It aches right at the core
to not have something you absolutely adore
But you sit silently for the sake of peace
or because you know It'd go unheard.
I don't know if that's love
For me it was always like roses
Either I forgot about the thorns or the lovely smell made it non-existent.
I try to comprehend it,
put the puzzle back into one piece
It might take time but well
a poet will never put her love to sleep.
~ Shreshtha Mishra
It’s all a lie, you know
Those great plays were
all writen by
someone other than
Will, the Bard
At least that is what
I heard
and why would
someone lie about that?
Aren’t there better
lies to tell?
Like the one you tell
to your future
mother-in-law
“Yes Mrs. Peters,
that meal was wonderful!”
Or the one you tell
to your future
father-in-law
“No Mr. Peters,
we’re waiting until
we’re married.”
or the lies that
politicians all
tell We the People,
like
“No new taxes”
or
“Ill create new jobs”
or
“They started it with their
weapons of mass destruction.”
Funny how those weapons
massively disappeared
So why would anyone
bother to lie about
Shakespeare?
What did he do to
deserve that?
Maybe he voted for
the wrong party
The 'Bard of Avon'- William Shakespeare
Never held in his hand a spear,
But with a sharp and powerful quill,
Killed kings and princesses, summoning their ghosts at will.
William Shakespeare,
whose lines made groundlings quake with cheer,
sent the Globe into raucous delight—
turning every tossed apple core into opening night.
Behold the Globe, where Will in splendor stood,
His quill a wand that bent the world to art;
He summoned tempests, witches, fire, and blood,
And bound Verona’s lovers heart to heart.
He bade dear Hamlet grapple with his soul,
And cast enchanted moonlight o’er the stage;
He crowned mad Lear, then let the thunder roll,
A king undone by storm and mortal age.
His verses roll through time’s eternal hall,
Each utterance a flame from voice to voice;
Players and princes rise at his clear call,
And sound his truths in tones that bid heaven rejoice.
O Will, thy works yet walk the boards with might,
For thou hast taught the very stars to write.
poem written for online poetry class
What is love?
What makes everything alright?
Is it something from above?
What gets YOU through the night?
What is Young Lust?
A song written by Pink Floyd?
Who do we trust?
I believe we both can get annoyed...
We have had time to heal,
Yet, I still want to steal your heart...
What is Time and do NOT tell me another Pink Floyd song...
Could pleasure be measured?
Can either one of our lives be treasured?
Or did we both completely lose our minds...
Enter Poet, clutching a sonnet: ‘The checker says I’m guilty. See, it flagged my rhyme as machine!!’
Podcaster nods sagely: ‘It is not your imagination; it is proof the robots haunt our dreams.’
Audience gasps: 'That’s NOTHing. SHAKEspeare ALso ONCE acCUSED – / preDICTable Iambs, GROSS susPIcious RUSE!'
Poet protests: ‘I swear it’s quill and ink, not silicon and code …’
Checker blinks, statistical gears grinding: ‘Patterns resemble algorithmic load.’
While phubbing, critic whispers: ‘False positives thrive where meter marches tight.’
Podcaster grins: ’Ignorance sells—truth is dull, paranoia bites.’
Poet sighs: ‘Convenient shield, this oracle of error—‘
Exasperated, Curtain falls: ‘Disinformation thrives when denial meets terror.’
From the wings, Thomas Gray’s quietly haunting voice: ‘Where ignorance is bliss, ‘tis folly to be wise.’*
______________________________________________________________________________________________
*From the final stanza of Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College, by Thomas Gray (1716–71).
Now is the winter of our discontent,
For our sins, we shall repent.
Not a soul can escape this torment,
Slowly turning us all senescent.
The cold wind in the east thus blows,
Falling are the petals of that frosty rose.
Our hearts have come to froze,
As we try to cast our minds to our woes.
Harm is the reminiscence of summer,
When we doth celebrate midsommar.
Oh the sun! What has now become of her,
Hiding in shadows, no radiance from her.
The hail hath come to end one and all,
The white rain on the earth doth fall.
How does one remove this hovering pall?
When the limited will cause them to brawl.
Sinking below this sheet of white,
Numbing our body, this frostbite.
Will we ever again see a twilight,
Or will this just be an endless night?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
O crooked architect of thrones,
who stacked your realm on children’s bones~
How shall I curse thee?
Not with fire, nor with plague’s black breath,
nor with the slow unspooling of your death
(though history grants you that).
No. Let the curse be this:
that every mirror cracks before your face,
that every hound you feed still wears York’s scent,
that every victory tastes of Hastings’ blood
that your crown grows thorns.
that your prayers be answered,
that the ghosts arrive punctually~
no missed entrances, no skipped lines
and let them stand just so,
in perfect blocking,
downstage of your guilt.
And when at last the horses fail,
and the crown is traded for a nail,
may you hear,
beneath the drumbeat’s battle royal,
the same question, endlessly rehearsed:
Was it worth the play?
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