Out Like a Lamb

Shake Spear

I shook my head, my fist, my spear
at reading Shakespeare plays on pages -

It felt like scrutinizing movie scripts,
flat words on paper bound with boredom.
She enters, he exits, there is fanfare.

So what? I said. Too vast, too unfamiliar.

Even all the blocking, something wooden;
editors add when and where to stand,
to sit, pace, enter, exit, dance, carouse,
to turn, to draw your sword, to die...

I wanted all his works performed -
I wanted actors dressed in costume,
animating idioms and jests and jokes
and so I sought productions, rented films

and passed the class by circumventing words.

I think the bard himself would sympathize
in sonnet form, defending my deception.




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April 23—Shakespeare