ManicDDaily

To You, After Shakespeare (No. 18)

Rock shifts for Sisyphus at the end of day,
the rock of Venus, but more temperate.
I write about the planet if I may
but also write of my nightly date
with your limbs.  If I could climb, I’d climb their shine–
I can’t actually see it in the dim–
but warm myself with the glow of the decline
of palm’s cascade from shoulder to hip (so trim).
As night goes on, the darkness seems to fade
and the skin of light to pool, a debt dear owed
to those, like us, who’ve endured a treeless shade
but now want branches–yours–now need what grows
even through the blows of rough, of come-what-may–
Oh love, I shan’t compare you to a summer’s day.

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This is very much of a draft poem, but I hope kind of fun, written to the end rhymes (more or less) of Shakespeare’s sonnet number 18.  I wrote this based on an exercise suggested by Bjorn Rudberg’s prompt  on Real Toads about using end rhymes of a specific poem. I did not use the last two rhymes of Shakespeare’s sonnet as they rely on “thee,” so had a great excuse to go my own way.   Pic is old one of mine of elephant influenced by Sisyphus–I don’t really mean the lover in the poem to seem frustrated–just liked the reference–ha!  All rights reserved.

Ps-I have been repeatedly editing the first line since posting.  I still don’t know that it is getting my meaning across but here it is for now.