H
e a r t S o n s & H e a r t D a u g h t e r s of A l l e n G i n s
b e r g
N
a p a l m H e a l t h S p a : R e p o r t 2 0 1 4 : A r c h i
v e s E d i t i o n
RANDY ROARK
Romeo and Juliet (1594-1595)
What, rouse thee, man!
Thy Juliet is alive,
For whose dear sake thou
wast but lately dead:
There art thou happy. Tybalt would kill thee,
But thou slewest Tybalt: there art thou
happy.
The law that threat’ned death becomes thy friend,
And turns to exile:
there are thou happy.
A pack of blessings
light upon thy back,
Happiness courts thee in
her best array,
But like a misbehaved
and sullen wench
Thou pouts
upon thy fortune and thy love.
Take heed,
take heed, for such die miserable.
Go get thee to thy love
as was decreed,
Ascend her chamber,
hence and comfort her.
III. iii.135-147
In the early
morning, her white belly.
Love and death
have their own formalities.
How often in our
triumph we begin our fall,
how often wisdom is glanced at and
passed over.
How often a quick
bright thing becomes confusion,
cut-glass crystals over-illuminated by
the sun.
How often
portents in the stars or in dreams
foretell what we should have
known already.
But the Muse
lately sings some other where.
She sleeps, or
else says nothing.
[Excerpt
from The Shakespeare Poems
by Randy Roark.
Originally published in NHS 2012,
http://www.poetspath.com/napalm/nhs12/.]