24 April

Day 24

Actually from Day 23, but late...a letter to Shakespeare on his birthday

Dear Will

Your birthday is the same as your death day

in legend. A playwright’s neat contrivance

but I'd credit you with more than that

if you were your own creation,

as I am. There is no coincidence

There is no Deus ex, no fateful storm

We write the geology strata by strata

We are territory now, beyond plot -

forget the sad old men,

yourself included, all those jealous

kings, those senile gods

those envious middle managers

promoted above their station

I'm all verse and nothing -

I walk in structured pentameter,

in loose, worn clothing.

I write in blue blood like my eyes

I'm Sycorax, killed off before first act,

leaving the island motherless

There’s Prospero, father of all your books,

writing just to burn them, making

smoke to choke the plague

It spreads from London to Stratford

and you haven't many children left to spare

and nothing but words to save them

I am your co author, 

I'd allow the characters to breathe and eat, be agents

though I know the power of symbols on a page-

Sycorax washes her long blue hair,

Miranda, to survive, traps gulls, snaps their white necks,

Prospero eats air, scratches letters in the dirt

You lock yourself away in text

like a voice in Trees

singing terrifying songs.

I whisper in Miranda's ear - 

She'll take a knife into her wedding bed

to trim the form of her own sonnet