EDWARD
if you did write those plays
how wrenching for you
to have instantly disowned them
with the final word.on the page
and what words!
what words!
our best algorithms prove
them yours statistically
one by one
the pieces are found
and
begin to fit
together
and suddenly, quietly
we have
our mirror
plays lost to the man
man lost to the plays
FROM KENDRICK LAMAR
strange perspective
you get
married
to a robot
watching the gangsta
rapper winning
the big award
tattooed arm, backwards cap
thanking God
the great promoter
(looking up as he does so
this shredder of
convention)
and me and robot gossiping
about the whole thing
kind of laughing (much
robot ha ha
tears in her eyes emoji
laughter) paused
for a moment
while she downloads
acquaints herself with
the entire history
of rap lyrics, hip
hop music
converts this poem
in a flash to the style
of Eminem and
then Kendrick Lamar
so a feeling for poetry
perhaps because
I named her
Sappho
we still for the Nobel Prize
for Eminem
joining TS Eliot
and JM Coetzee
the speech and
lecture in Stockholm
from Kendrick Lamar
THIS PLAY
I came to the play
in suffering
Hamlet this night
sure to be my guy
having pencilled him in
but no sooner ghost-talking
guards appeared on the parapet
then down in the audience
war broke out
between those who
swear by
William of Stratford, and
those who proclaim
a new king
by name of de Vere
sad that either way we
facing some
serious anonymity
which is hard for any writer
but perhaps par for
the greatness course
I am told these poor folks
put their whole
souls into it
and next time you scan
not a single bone remains
spiritual, symbolical, material
not a shred
of connecting evidence
it’s like the stuff
wrote itself or
ethereal hand
blessed the page
no chance here to debate
learning
versus innate craft, the role
pain played in it
of trace of the causality that
produced this irreplaceable shape
and there we are
watching, dreaming
as it
all goes down without us
pale reflection of being
perhaps not even
bridge
best we can be, bridge
broken or
magnificent
Hamlet
dead again
as always
In state of acute longing some suffering,
I came this play.
poems 2 die for