Happy Birthday, BILL!!! Options

[JustDaniel]

Happy Birthday, BILL!!

Even though we don't really know the exact date, it is commonly held that the old spear-shaker's BIRTH DATE was on or about April 23, 1564, and his DEATH DATE was also April 23, fifty-two years later, in 1616.

deLighting in his influence on our language, Daniel


Here's a sonnet that Ol' Bill gravely wrote to me when someone sent him one of my early sonnets (included following 'his')

Sonnet Bill’s Soliloquy

as communicated to MLee Dickens'son in Sept 2002

Oh how you’ve tinkered with my sacred form!
A ducky sonnet? You’re a quack indeed.
Why couldn’t you, by following the norm,
avoid such grainy stuff – this chicken feed!

You think me harsh and grumpy? Wouldn’t you
be equally perturbed if you’d had Howard
wrest you back from death to face this crew
of sonnet-wreckers – every one a coward?

Now leave me be, or not to be! ‘Tis worse
alive to be with waddling, quacking words
that pose Iambic-you-know-what in verse,
than dead, and only known by whacko nerds.

Though I be known as Stiff-Necked-Sonnet Bill,
quite gravely, I’m content without this swill!

A Strange Critter
a blank stare sonnet

Today my Critter glazed as if to say
he simply couldn’t limn a single word.
To show I understood, I’d pat his head,
I thought; he moved away beyond my reach.

Withdrawing hand, I felt a single tear
come coursing down my nose. “Splot” on the floor.
As if he heard, his eyes caught mine again
and purred a bit, I think, then looked away.

I tried again to soothe my 10-month pet,
but every move I made drove him away.
Why does he treat me so? How can we share
my thoughts and insights, dreams. He is my friend!

With him I want to give what I’ve received.
Be patient, fellow poets. Crit’s estranged.

© MLee Dickens'son 2002

P.S. There are three layers in this poem, but the most important is that I was experiencing something similar to writer’s block –except that it’s what those who attempt to critique, experience: Critter’s Block!