This is the story of my Juliet;

Of her Montague and his Capulet.

Roses smell sweet with no care of their name,

But with “Montague”, this just isn’t the same.



As a cruel joke, fate bonded their hearts,

For fate knew too well that they’d be torn apart;

Torn apart like the brawling in the public square,

Where Montagues and Capulets disagreed there.



I am the one whom Romeo loved,

Before he’d first seen his Capulet dove.

It happened quite fast, and inside the year,

We were something akin to the three musketeers.



We knew if the secretive lovers were caught,

They’d both be destroyed; impaled on the spot.

So I covered for them, and I helped them along,

And I did my best to sing over their song.



I witnessed the wedding, the friar’s compliance

In hopes that the families would form an alliance.

And while I had my doubts, I kept my lips sealed;

I allowed them to hope the tooth fairy was real.



Soon after that, I was with Romeo and his friend,

When Tybalt came along and caused Mercutio’s end.

I ran after Romeo, begging “Please! Use your head!”

But it was to no avail, and soon Tybalt was dead.



So Romeo was banished, and I sat with his wife;

I comforted her as she wept of her strife.

She was almost alright, but fate slipped on its gloves,

And she was betrothed to a man she couldn’t love.



Three times, I convinced her to put down her knife;

“You can do this, Capulet, don’t you take your own life!”

I spoke with the friar, and he had not a clue,

Till I formed a plan and a mysterious brew.



I sent a letter to Romeo, warning him of her sleep,

And so Juliet drank into slumber most deep.

Two days went past, then I felt my heart stop-

My letter had been returned, and Romeo’s address dropped.



I tripped a few times as I sprinted towards her grave,

All the while howling out Romeo’s name.

I leapt across ditches, I dashed around trees,

And I fount Montague, fallen to his knees.



“She is pure beauty, even in her death,”

Said Romeo as he took his last breath.

I lunged, and I screamed until my throat bled,

But bleed as I might, Romeo was now dead.



Juliet yawned, and it turned into a cry,

As the sight of his body burned into her eyes.

I stood up, hands shaking, and reached out to my friend,

But I knew this was a wound my soft words couldn’t mend.



“Juliet, don’t,” I pleaded weakly.

She shook her head sadly, said “I’m sorry, Rosaline.”

I held her small frame, and I felt her depart,

As she drove her own blade into her broken heart.



Montagues and Capulets sat together that day,

And they mourned their children and regretted their hate.

I stood up, though it pained me, and they looked distressed

At Juliet’s blood that soaked through my dress.



“This is your fault!” I yelled hoarsely at the lords.

“You ran your own children through with your swords!

If you are so noble, ordained from above,

How could you destroy their lives and their love!?”



“Don’t you dare let their sacrifices end in vain!

They were my friends, and they died so you’d change!

I hope you make peace, because your bigotry

Took Romeo and Juliet away from me!”



So it was, that the families have since lived in harmony,

But that is something that now hardly matters to me.

A rose by any name would still smell as sweet,

But if “Montague” was different…





This would not be a tragedy…

we kissed.
"are you happier now." you said.
nobody's ever going
to
          love
                    me.
but at least sadness doesn't devour me as easily.
i got thoughts to banish the
          sadness
and
                    pain.
the only thing i've ever wanted was for someone to love me.
it's a tragedy.
this is a love story that will end like r + j.
but unlike shakespeare, my brain isn't dead.
i will fight for love like the capulets and montagues.
i will die for this love to last.
and i will do anything just to make you happy.
but yet,
                    i'm
still
          not
loved.
it's impossible for someone like him, my romeo whose eyes are darker than the night sky,
to fall for a vulnerable juliet, who on the inside is a weak, emotionless girl who doesn't ever
get
what
she
wants.

You dot the i's
and call yourself  
modern day romeo
coming to sweep me off my feet
coming to zap my heart
with lightening bolts
of awareness
awareness of you

Yet you never once
told me a poem
melted my heart with haiku's
or moved me with impossibilities

Never once has it occurred to you
that capulets and montagues don't click
because you always had your way
you're a modern day romeo
full of narcissistic poison
melting off your logic
revealing every chiseled muscle
that you think
will make your Juliets
melt

Oh romeo, romeo
where for art thou?
Show these modern newbies
the ways of articulation
the ways of seducing without the flesh
the ways of making eyes glow

oh romeo,
where for art thou
for the romance
I seek
is long
forgotten

we were in constant dispute like the Capulet's & the Montagues
but a love like Romeo & Juliet
like Tybolts & Merctuios hatred for each other , very passionately
ride or die like Romeo & Benvolio
trying to hold each other down
sacrificing lives for on another
but just like the poison Romeo drank
you were poison to me

At school, poetry was anything but cool
Reading Shakespeare, Dickinson, Austin and Hughes
Writing essays on the Capulets and Montagues
Every time that subject came up my brain went on snooze
Call it what you want, the ignorance of youth
Like maybe my young mind was too uncouth
It just didn’t feel like they were speaking the truth
***** waggle dagger’s just too long in the tooth
Although one day we done some knowledge on Poe
Some lines that man wrote made my interest grow
It wasn’t what he said it’s how he said it
He didn’t even say anything to me, it’s how I read it
It made me wanna write down my feelings
It felt healing, exorcising all my demons
As I wrote I could feel all the heaviness leaving
Giving my brain a spring cleaning
It’s very therapeutic to take an experience
Wrap it neatly in a metaphor for convenience
That’s one of many reasons I love the bard’s art
A bird tapping a man’s window was the start
Ever since then poetry’s been knocking
At my chamber door but this is no Lenore
Poetry shall lift my soul forever more
Forever more

Times like this I'm not sure of what to write about
Do I write about happiness that I will one day find
Or do I write about sadness, my current state of mind
Lost in a war between the Ups and the Downs
Romeo and Juliet, Montagues and Capulets
Some one save me from this confusion
Tell me that it will be all right
Tell me that the Ups will end this never ending battle of emotions that constantly rule my day
I don't want to be here, not like this

Oh, You are such a one
as You can only meet in a thousand lifetimes
such a one who gave birth
to an ancient war
upon Troy's legendary shore
or the one of who the bard wrote
that enslaved the heart
of the Montagues'  fairest flower
Oh, You are as close to Me
as the very breath I take
Oh, I can feel Your heart
beating in My chest
two hearts beating as one
to a single rhythm
as each to each by love do entrance
Oh, our lives are as two rivers
as they meet and flow into one
Oh, I throw all care far away
and caution to the four winds
Oh, let the wild savage wind
carry it where it may
though My inner eye were opened
and I could plainly see
in days to come
as I climbed a gallows
as high as an endless sky
to My certain doom
Oh, I could neither turn left nor right
in My hapless life's plight
by the breath of a hair
though it forever stilled My heart
if by that I knew
from Me You would be forever lost
Oh, You are the one
for which My poor heart beats
for without You
it would beat only in vain
as though it were
some soulless mechanical thing
though I were to pass
ten thousand years
in the same mortal coil
I would never find
one who has your face and arms
arms to hold me
so tightly in your soft embrace
that says in unspoken words
Oh, I love You...I love You... I love You!
forever and evermore

I misplaced a haven that infatuated me
it melted as the thermometer throbbed
that exceptional part in the museum,
that envious balcony where we fawned
over its edge

do you see them? the shelves hold every colour
do you long for it? it's an intrinsic desire, yes, it is
it was the nirvana, the nirvana of time and its
enemies that you've just seen buried in books
return to it, return to it, you must

I'm done with tragedies, I'm done with the Montagues
see the crowd, crowd your thoughts
thrive on what you must
in the poetics of distance, it's never free
we won't sense the gaps until
some of our selves fall through

-c.j.

The tragic misfortunes of the victims of hate
Could not control their haunted fate.
Romeo and Juliet bound in chains of doom
sprung from a fountain of a toxic fued.
Fiery tybalt and his sword of gold revived a battle that remains to be told.
Romeo in anger and full of love killed the boy and a riot set off .
Now the hate grew ever more and more and soon enough the families where at war !
Which to end a tale in death and tears for these ancient families it was never clear.
That there love made love turn into hate.
Now four lay dead in a tomb,
from the battles of the caplets and the montagues !
And never was there a story of more woe than this of juliet and her romeo.

camaraderie - much too
grand a word, of course
for the heady unity we'd caught
against our parents
against our school
nonchalantly - against them all
raging round our haughty town
dressing up by dressing down
our Capulets and Montagues
were Trendies versus Casuals
but mostly we were tiny shells
trapped in our semirural hell
united we could stand it best
while hatching in an empty nest

"Where be these enemies?"
Asks the Prince. Can he defuse
The bitter, violent feud between
The Capulets and the Montagues?

How sad it is when we observe
How human hatred seems here to stay,
And years and years of antidotes
Of love aren't able to wash it away!

And when we see the tactics used
By some to make America great,
We see the consequences of
The "scourge that's laid upon [our] hate."

The cruel dehumanization of people
Does not bring the people together.
It merely unites a certain group,
Or angry mob--birds of a feather.

The misrepresentation of facts--
Of pulling the wool over people's eyes--
Only perpetuates all the hatred
With a cacophony of lies.

By seeking enemies constantly
In other people, we tend to forget
That "all are punished" because there is
A deeper, darker, more dangerous threat.

"Where be these enemies?"
That's the question we have to pose.
And so it's hatred within our hearts?
There, you've hit it on the nose!

-by Bob B (10-11-24)