Thursday, October 18, 2012

As I Like It



image borrowed from bing


As I Like It

“A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man
knows himself to be a fool.”--William Shakespeare

I am, perhaps
have forever been
since I was attracted to Bardolatry as George B.
Shaw dubbed 
that free-floating need some of us
developed in the 50’s, trying so very hard
to escape the greasy duck tails, aviator sunglasses,
leather jackets, rolled
jeans cuffs, and those jaunty motorcycle
hats like Elvis and Brando
wore playing at being Wild Ones by desperately
trying to acquire hardcore Stratfordian
“cultural status”, putting out there in that Eisenhower
world the illusion, possibly even misnomer 
that we had full understanding of
iambic pentameter, legends
of antiquity and Shakespeare’s
38 plays, even the bizarre and minor
ones like Troilus & Cressida, 154
sonnets, 2 long narrative and several short
poems all credited to an illiterate drunken second-rate
actor, a patsy, a front-man for some more 
cultured nobleman who actually had a classical
education, whereas young Will could barely
sign his own name, spelling it four
different ways in odd scrawl, when it appeared
at all, was not opposed to crediting several
of the early plays to Anonymous, as was
the custom of the times not wanting to run
afoul of the political mandates against
the “stigma of print”, or certainly I have become
a convert to Oxfordism even though it thrusts
me into the elitist ranks of Gielgud,
Welles, Jacobi, Chaplin, Freud, Whitman, & Twain
as someone willingly accepting the doctrine
of “argumentum exsilentis” because there does not
seem to be a shred of evidence in any extant
document written in Will’s handwriting of his traveling
outside the limits of London or studying
the Classics, that Shakespeare might actually
have been as Ben Johnson described,
that “literary thief Poet Ape” and god damn it,
it should be obvious to any person with one iota
of common sense, as Tom Paine pandered to,
that Shakespeare’s first statue atop his funeral
monument in 1656, dying as he did in 1616, was
a man holding a sack of grain for he was in fact
a farmer & merchant whom we are to believe
somehow found time between harvests and auctions
to write his masterpieces, and it was not until later
that the statue was recast and the man was
holding a quill and paper, so I believe, am comfortable
with the fact that Oxfordian theories, like Darwinism,
are rife with logic and a healthy smattering of dredged
up facts and are certainly not, have never been,
arguments constructed from silence or omission,
that clearly for some, and certainly for me, the true
author of the Shakespearean canon was not
Francis Bacon or Christopher Marlowe, but rather
the 17th Earl of Oxford, Edward de Vere, portrayed
recently brilliantly by Rhys Ifans in ANONYMOUS, 
who in actual documented history did bed Young Bess
and did continue to write plays and poetry despite
the consternation it caused the courtiers, and how delicious
it is to rationally consider that Edward might have been
one of the earliest of Elizabeth’s bastard sons himself,
twisting all that passion into poetic irony and Oeudipul 
synchronicity, since she gave up all those boys immediately
after their birth and did not want to know their true
identities and yes, I unequivocally agree as poet
myself as Edward was so very fond of saying,

“All art is political--otherwise
it is just decoration.”

Glenn But--t--kus

October 2012

Posted over on dVerse Poet MTB

Would you like to hear the actual author of this enjambement read it to you?

13 comments:

Victoria said...

Glenn, this is positively masterful! You definitely were born with the gift of steampunk. I'm still afraid to try my own prompt...this part of it anyway. Bravo!

Brian Miller said...

haha you even had fun with your name at the end...smiles....and well done sir...i did not tackle that side of the prompt...yet....i might have to....interesting on the history as well and the thoughts of authenticity....

Wander said...

Thank you for this

Wander

Unknown said...

I found myself dizzy at poem's end, having forgotten to breathe as I cycled faster and faster through the words, through the time. Clearly, an effective, engaging piece!

http://www.kimnelsonwrites.com/2012/10/18/her-the-steampunk-version/

Anonymous said...

De Vere was not Shakespeare, Shakespeare/Anonymous continued writing plays and sonnets and revising his plays and sonnets long after De Vere died

Anonymous said...

And let's not forget plenty of some of the greatest writers were raging alcoholics, including raging alcoholics with little education, as well as sober writers with little-to-no education whatsoever, and even writers who were institutionalized off-and-on......

Anonymous said...

this deep and some well received information to myself. Thanks you

flipside records said...

I found this very interesting and engaging. I do believe that by signing your name as such, you are calling yourself a "butt" or "fool," returning to the topic of the quote at the top, thereby framing your piece quite effectively. I fully agree with the content of the quote. We are certainly all fools, and it takes a bit of intellect to realize that it is so. It is much easier to be ignorant, if you ask me. Having the capacity for deeper thought than most is assuredly a curse.

Anonymous said...

I'd like to know your take on the Kennedy assassination. Butttt seriously, one thing I liked was the juxtaposition of the 1950s era with the thing being studied.

Dave King said...

A scholarly poem, by Jove. An entertaining peep into controversial areas. Love it.

Sreeja said...

Woww...the prompt is in your lines...

Anonymous said...

Nicely done! :)

Beachanny said...

Ha..first punk one I've read. Flirting with one but can't cement the story yet. Loved this and the bard. If you have netflix, there's a great documentary on him you might like as much as I did.... "In Search of Shakespeare". (In case you'd like to do a second one!) Good one!