When I die, I hope it is like my dreams.
In that way, death would not be so fearful,
A remedy for my thoughts when I sleep.
In return, I dream of my death by this
Stuff that so haunts my dreams. To be scorns of
Time and its aching length, calamity
Of so long life. Yet we so dread something
After death, a no-mans land from where no
One shall return – this makes us bear our ills.
We fight. We suffer. We are wounded, all.
So we are cowards that do fear our deaths,
For we fear the unknown, those we know not.
Instead we dream that dying is dreaming,
To sooth our conscience and minds from unreeling.

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'