It’s a fallacy, ‘to be or not to be’
actors strutting and pouting across
a stage, their black shoes burning
holes into the painted wood,

Their words lacking conviction
each action, merely an action,
but it’s what they have to work with
that holds the key, he secret ecstasy,
The escape route from Hell

Knowing that, given the choice,
‘to be’ is not where the scales will
settle. We are wanderers clutching
at straws of adventures, but we will
pick the short one, eventually

Where then do we go? When there is
no ladder made of gold to climb.
no pearly gates nor a wizardly,
kindly face

‘The play’s the thing’
wherein we catch
the conscious of
ourselves

II Pet 1:9 coming to mind as I finished, lo, the complexity of this piece, and this:  "...lacketh these things is blind and cannot see afar off--"



(sonnet #MMMMMMMCDXCIX)


How Shakespeare's lines 'non haunt the flag's detail
As't waves to bitter winds' capricious sense
Of play, with memries of late rallies thence
In tow, as all we'd grandly strut through'd pale
Before the empty eye of hours that scale
Down what we said was living, as pretense
Leers through the smoky limelight fading hence
Where leaves pile up too thickly for aught bail.
Is't cuz I've tried 'gain to be stylish fer
What fashion and say Vogue mag swore was due,
Tae learn my peers yet scorn attempts in tour?
Cuz even when I did succeed and do
All that "they" said should be, or called too poor
What we thought tops, Death mocks as ere we knew?

07Nov18a

When Romeo chose poison,
He chose to die asleep,
And painlessly join Juliet.
Their promise still to keep.

When Juliet chose to follow him,
A dagger in her breast,
Embrace could never feel so sweet,
As Death's gentle arrest.

The Reaper kissed them kindly,
And took them by the hand,
And led them far away from here,
To find a better land.

They left us here to ponder,
Faces white as winter snow,
Why lovers couldn't live to tell,
The tale of long ago.

A Trojan horse. As Cleopatra in a carpet
Enters hidden on a breath
Incubus; droplet alien drawn in,
sets about its work; brooding job to do.

Awaken a little stiff, sweat and grog
A scratchy throat; a swollen lymph
Shower power, rinse and coffee makes well.
No. Twas not to be this false alarm, I’d grabbed.

Working fast now, growing, flooding
like snow melt hitting parched desert.
Seeping into cracks; changing blood-scapes.
Reprographic virus; dissociative – to thrive.

A false pardon was granted this morning
Cruel deception, such as played on Nick Bottom
teased mind into belief; a surge of relief,
Just early morning rust; blow away sleep dust.

I am sick of it now, the sickness; the bug.
My alien visitors; my too close encounter
making things smell wrong – like vinegar
and my nose pop as each side turns to unblock.

As big screen drama – epic plays out in my mind.
The white cells; the soldiers wiping out alien-kind
Dualling MacDuff and MacBeth in Dunsinane cell
Waging battle within me; my man-flu living hell.

©pofacedpoetry Billy Reynard-Bowness (2018) all right’s reserved

The world is a stage, and we're merely players. Love is the game, so we're at the table. Look at the cards for the queen of my heart.

It is you.

"She should have died hereafter.
There would have been a time for such a word.
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing."

~Shakespeare, from 'Macbeth'

Oh, for what was I a boy, so long ago,
Dancing freely amongst the tall tree tops.
Greedily breathing the morning dew's glow,
Mind settling down, vast daydreaming flops.

Gazing eyes upon sweets and fruits of bliss,
Sorrow has it's days and merriment be.
As bitterness eye followed for a kiss,
Delivered confusion under my tree.

Curious rovers bellow sounds of bleak,
Hell fellows chamfer happiness askew.
Mind's eye worrying a shadowless shriek,
Running humming my innocence aflew.

Events that played out like song of sorrow,
Gift to thine eye and forgotten tomorrow.

for all the love of life that is now lost
your voice rings through my mind like a warm song
regardless of sweet summers ending cost
creates poetry in my head ere long

our melting of minds and bodies now gone
but forgotten, your touch could never be
simple as the dusk which becomes the dawn
my love for you as pure, as it is free

I know you may not feel of me the same
perhaps never again will you be mine
and gone is the love that once easy came
perhaps your silence has become a sign

but my love for you will always ring true
and your love alone has carried me through