Love's Labour's Won
#6 of Poetry
One hundred monkeys at typewriters could have written this, too. Or maybe just the one behind the grin.
A play of pure futility! We speak our parts as automatons, Emotions leaked from slits under our eyes To drain in tiny pools on ruined carpet, Stains of neverwas, and neverwill. A blocking so contrite we scoff in rhythm And sweep our hands in broad gesticulations, Bronze masks of flailing limbs; Spotlights pepper procenium framing So arching and o'erwrought it crumbles at our breath-- Tumbles in chunks across the apron, The orchestra pit in shambles at performance end.
This is our great Shakespearean tragedy-- To be unyeilding in our manners, Codified with social standards and banners of truces. We denied the screaming for the sake of a white flag; The emotion is in the print! We need not add more, no Royal Society will deny! Stage directions are meaningless, so we stagger, We haggardly wrangle with these tenuous traces Lingering fingerings to lutes we shan't play.
O, to be the poison in my ear! To be the happy dagger! Yet no, we are beset to exist upon pages strange: I, written, as a love labour lost-- You, hidden away, as labour won.