SHAKESPEARE 23 2016
(My epitaph)

Your living history is intact
though we do not know
all the facts of your creative
passing time on earth
but for us we will not bury
your talented memory
though even the closure today
of your four hundredth anniversary
many are claiming your legacy
but we know your genius
from your plays as a narrative
in the quality of sonnets, or lines
from rhymes of your divine poetry
we still sing,in this my epitaph
for Shakespeare whether writing
of kings or a reunion with beggars
by laughing with Falstaff
or drinking cups of wine
with everyone
or playing his part and folio
around the table
with Malvolio, a feigned Puritan
pretending he is so honorable
that he has no sin
claims he hates games and fun
under the sun
as a disciplined steward to Olivia,
as Will quivers with baited breath
waits up for Lady MacBeth
to shame her until her death
or weeping with his character Lear
or discovering Hamlet,
Laertes' daughter
with Ophelia's tears
that brings us close to the stars,
today there is still regret
from the world's amnesia
after our trespassing years
which seems but a day
yet there is always pleasure
for Shakespeare never done
from an open clever departure
of you in our leisure of the stage
who never will culturally age
this anniversary afternoon
at the bard
of Stratford upon Avon's
fulfilling voice
we sing kyrie elison
in the dawn of
our multi-culture time
yet bestowing his lexicon
in full choice of disclosure
as the moving of the sun
or in a contrary passing
of a turning blood red moon
we act in yearning scenes
learning your precious odes
in his nomenclature
among your strenuous choice
in delicious repast moments
in the wit of Measure for Measure
feeding us food of the gods, ambrosia
along the river bed neighborhoods
to deliver you a rose of Sharon
from your literacy shed
at the Globe theater
on the wrathful provocative stage
of your critical language
from your Elizabethan poetic lore
taking a knife to open up
your literary history's heritage
leaving us from Tudor strife
for an unknown country
and offer and urge the span
for us to inherit  your humanity
in a solitary path for literary poets
on every librarian's page
from death to a life story
you own this inglorious stage
in our sorry fate's seclusion
as we play our fiddle
and hear from our partisan chorus
in barren disbelief after
a Will Shakespearean farewell
of a star celebrity we bless
four hundred years to the day
with a dirge under your cover
in the conclusion of our grief
of our reality and confess
urging every gratis of disbelief
for author and lover's vocation
to remember you
who leaves us in middle age
at fifty two
forgetting the funereal view
satisfied at
your invitation's success
in more than a thousand counties
of the English commonweal,
let's largely celebrate this day.