Three Poems from a Sonnet Cycle, by Tom Will
Three poems from Tom Will's Sonnet Cycle, based on Shakespeare;s; Shall I Compare Thee To A Summer;s Day
Thou Art More Lovely
Though art more lovely and more temperate
And clad in Hamlet;s black turtleneck bra
And art;s and mind;s unkissable templates
Die soft on the rug where your skirt was unclawed
More temperate; far more temperate us
Than shades of black; your skin at night remains
In dreams; I treat you as Polonius
And stab you through a tapestry of Danes
Though art more lovely and thou art more dead
Than Shakespeare;s sons and Hamlet;s whores; and yet
Are killed again; a book we took to bed
Read sheet by sheet by archeologists
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern; my fav;rite men
Unheeded dead; outside; cuz all our din
And Often Is His Gold Complexion
And often is his gold complexion dimm;d
And often are his split ends needing trimm;d
And often poets pray to fruit and teeth
And Charles Olson drank;d himself to sleep
And often fortune tellers lose your card
And taxi drivers piss;d in taxi cars
And often New Direction printed dreck
And often gamblers lost their life to luck
I wish I had a hihat made of gold
And Maenads stuffed their bras with all my poems
And Alexander lent me Gordian sword
And theatres with a mandate burnt to boards
And if they saw me write this in the bath
The magazines would print me front to back
Nor Shall Death Brag
Nor shall death brag thou wanderest in his shade
Nor burn the roof of your mouth on fried spam
Nor taste the burn through a cigarette; light-
Ly enjambed; nor claimed by Kent Johnson; nor
By the claiming sun on Fire Island
Death shall not enjamb you; your lines; meanings
Like a snake peering from underwater
Nor death drop your ring of words down the drain
Death cannot cook; he;s only back of house
With rockabilly poets; with cheap tattoos
May every rejection letter you get
Be sent with a dishwasher;s pinkish hands
Your words in me can never be enjambed
And our future editors bring us the check
Tom Will writes poems and lives in Tennessee. Will’s Sonnet Cycle will be published by Schism Press’s Neuronics imprint on February 17.
Illustration by Rene Magritte