birthday bard
born
or born
near this day
our lord’s year
1564
some educated
beyond
believed the local school
more so somehow
illuminated
aware of the world
where it is
where it was
who
and how
topical
which could be daring
writing about the father
of the kind
all sorts of guess
how he lived
except to know he was not
the starving artist
but
did well
poet
first
then actor
better-heeled
as poet
married
buried near the altar
for respect
and
perhaps some sort
of sponsorship
and
when dug up
to find all bones except
the head
as someone might have wondered
about Einstein
and
the brain
war
distant
near
love places and time
with something of forever
in each effort
magic
discovered
undiscovered countries
also
ethereal
tried as practical
the identity of one who could
compose
so much
and so penetrating
about us
peers
yes
and peerless
and
happy birthday
were you here
while we are here
yet
look forward to a part
with all
great dramas
in the legacy
of
the greatest play and art that
of eternity
c l couch
photo by Samuel Regan-Asante on Unsplash
“Stratford Station” (for translation)
Stratford, London, UK
We’ll Need New Articles for Einstein, Too
(23 April 2024)
Is it
Today
That’s Shakespeare’s birthday
That is
The christening day
By record of
The fact of birth
And if a construct
Then a construct with some very good
Actual
Details
A birthplace
A church
Parents
All the poetry
For
A first reputation
And some munificence
With which
To fund
Some future
With
Plays
Also a theatre
That burned
Down
And that they could
Build a stage again
A favorite of the queen
And then the king
Respected
No doubt also scorned
For envy
By
Peers of verse
Especially
Also of drama
A family
And a burial
Back
At the church
Near the altar
As a deal
And after checking
Mini-eons later
To find the skull
That held
The face
The
Mind
Like Yorick
Isn’t there
(proving something
proving nothing
Macbeth-
like
sound and fury)
Maybe to be set aside
Become
Einstein
Someone whom
We’ll argue for
In the same way
For
For future
Academics’ sakes
C L Couch
n.b. (I think well)
My christening
By the way
Waited a year and
A half
Oh
No
Grist for more
Speculation
Photo by Dalton Smith on Unsplash
23 April 1564
(looked it up—twenty-three score years ago)
(x = space)
x
x
Remembrance of Things and People Past
(Memorial Day 2023)
x
My grandfather was a doughboy
Another one
(I knew him more)
Cooked for the
Army in
The second war
x
My father served
In the war that followed
The war no one remembers
But cost lives
Of bodes and the souls therein
And for lack of
Remembering
Because remembering
Matters much
x
It’s a thought
A salute
And a parade
To visit flags on graves
Before we shop
Before we picnic
x
Mind you
Shopping and picnicking
Ain’t bad
Rights and privileges
Secured
Silly to you
Perhaps
There’s also watching war movies
On TCM
x
Arcane remembrances
We still make war movies
We still shop
And eat outside
Save rain
To drive companionship
Inside
x
Be inside
Be there
Be aware
Remembrance is a near miss
From experience
What follows war
Was bought for us
Our own secular
Allegiances
And promise
In significant
And blessed silly
Existence
x
God bless peace
And forestall war
And keep us faithful
To each other
More so to you
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Wesley Mc Lachlan on Unsplash
Corning, Corning, United States
x
(x = space)
x
x
Rick o’ the Wisp
x
Even so quickly may one catch the plague?
Olivia in Twelfth Night
x
Happy Birthday, Master Shakespeare
Squire Shakespeare
William
Will
Will o’ the Wisp
I’m visiting my brother today
He has cancer
I’ll be you knew of cancer
Even called it that
(unlike in a later age consumption for
tuberculosis)
I can’t recall it from a play
Or poem
But then I hardly know them all
And as it is,
I’m tired and not thinking
Did Lear get sick with something?
Lady Macbeth?
Or the thane?
Was there a balm for the queen
In Merry Wives of Windsor?
Did all of us feel better
In the panoply of spirits
That concludes The Tempest?
Or were we simply reminded
Of a world that isn’t ours
Regretting
Or remaining
Chastely distant,
Keeping to our own?
Well, a
Happy birthday to you, anyway
I’m visiting my brother today
He has cancer
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Enrique Alarcon on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
While in Mariana’s Grange
x
Hello, day
It’s been a night of wakefulness
Then I drifted off
Onto waters of forgetfulness
Except for dreams
That now I’m here
I am forgetting, too
x
But here’s remembrance:
I’m waking up
To what I left
And whom
There is no ignorance
Everything returns
I must learn again
How to contain
In flesh
Everything I bear
And had left
Only for a while
For angels lifting up
And demons bearing down
x
C L Couch
x
x
Mariana in the Moated Grange
John Everett Millais
painting dated 1851
the image is in the Public Domain
the painting hangs in the Tate in London
x
(x = space)
x
x
Signed, Shakespeare
x
It never happened
Maybe for some real estate
Or for companion ownership
In buildings,
In a theatre
x
The printing press came ‘round
At last
And with it the first suits
For plagiarizing
But his world
Her world
Dealt in manuscripts
Of which we don’t have any
x
For who would want them
When the players
And producers
Are all done with them
And we’ve moved on
In the production season?
x
So who was he
Or she?
Shakespeare was
As in existence
And we fight over that
x
What’s in an origin?
Ask mothers: they can
Tell you
In love and in labor,
There is a person
x
We have the plays as progeny
Thirty-eight or thirty-nine
And all the poetry
x
Was the name a pun—with a
Shaky hand, a quill (a spear) to write?
x
Maybe it’s to say
I do not care;
How much do you?
I think he was
And is through text
And liveliest
Performances,
Recitations,
Reservations,
Happy box offices
And officers
Plus venues and listeners
For poetry
x
Signed, Shakespeare
Has not happened for us
Yet or will
(or Will)
But when the flag is flying
And the gun has sounded,
We go in
x
Maybe there will be oranges
To eat
Because they do not rhyme
x
C L Couch
x
Photo by Mathew MacQuarrie on Unsplash
x
Birth(Death)day Bard
(23 April in the UK and elsewhere)
If we sang his birthday, someone
Would be owed money for
Copyright
There seems to be an economy to
The celebration
Since his birth day and his death day
Go as one
Without certitude
(certified baptism- and death-date)
Happy birthday, Queen’s man and King’s man
Patronized by both, though she
Would have Falstaff again,
Whom she was given in The Merry Wives of Windsor
All the world’s not a stage, and we
Are more than seven stages (ages), though
You wrote these in jest
From a character whose
Attitude we should not replicate
Like the speaker who opined
“To thine own self be true”
How many of your jokes do we take
For relevant advice?
Well, four hundred fifty-five
Your candled cake—your
Company would need to help take up the
Flame
While your dark lady rises
From the smoke of mystery that follows
(end of medieval, start of
Renaissance)
You cannot say good or bad day
Birth or death day
Even though we wish you well (I think,
after the school-essay’s done)
And if my words offend
(however parenthetically)
Here’s how I mend:
From Robin, Good day, Will
And I am done, until
C L Couch
Connormah, William Shakespeare – self-made, vectorized from existing PNG/JPG files, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7324293
A story about a trip with an image from Google to go with.
Once my sister and I drove and rode to Stratford, Ontario. Stratford is a small town west of London (Ontario) and a good ways west of Toronto. During the season, there is a drama festival there. There are several theatres in town, all of which give productions in repertory. So one can see things, many things, in only a few days’ time.
The dramas are world-class. They are reviewed in publications from around the world. Production quality is amazing. Whether in the round or behind a proscenium, set pieces move like magic, becoming places, overall, of many levels for actors’ interactions and actions. I say actions because, when histories or tragedies are given, the staged fighting is visceral and intense.
In addition to after-theatre fare, a reward in Stratford is walking through the town during the day. There are many places to visit. Many stores, of course, some selling products in pewter whose source was Saint Mary’s, the next-door town. But it was the bookstores that really were the treat. There were several and, whether new or used, the variety and quality of inventory was so delightful to ingest.
My sister and I saw a production of The Tempest that we still talk about with wistful fondness. And we talk about our last dinner in Stratford. We were both poor (I’m still poor), but I let Amy talk me into going to an extravagant French-styled restaurant. (Mostly, Stratford has an anglified feel.) She was right about making the investment of money and time. The meal experience was fantastic. Fantastique, I guess.
During this trip, my sister talked with me a great deal about a man she had met and was planning to marry. I didn’t know much about him, since Amy and I were living in different cities; she was busy working after graduate school, while I was busy getting ready to go. But I learned much now and was pleased she was willing to share so much. She also told me how this man reminded her of me. Always something impressive for a brother to hear.
A pre-Raphaelite painting depicting the play The Tempest. The discovery of Bermuda by the English (in a shipwreck-ing storm) was the inspiration for the play.
(www.johnwilliamwaterhouse.com at Google Images)
clcouch123 
Recent Comments