Poems for an Up and Down Spring: Shakespeare's Comedy and Real-Life Tragedy

My two poems in April issue of Verse-Virtual consist of a comedy and a tragedy. “In the Country of Fools, the Half-Wit is King” takes off from the Shakespeare quote. The second poem, “Time Stopped” recounts a recent, very different experience.

The issue's theme was based on a quote from Shakespeare's play As You Like It: "the wise man knows himself to be a fool." My poem goes back to that play and takes off from a dialogue between the 'fool' Touchstone (a fool in the Elizabethan sense is an 'entertainer' in a royal court who is allowed to speak truth to a king) and would-be suitor (a 'clown' or country bumpkin in the Elizabethan use of the term).

Here's the poem:

In the Country of Fools, the Half-Wit is King

"The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man

knows himself to be a fool." 

– As You Like It, Act 5, Scene i

So which are you, fellow, wise man or fool?

I have a pleasant wit about me, 
if it please you.

‘Tis so? Where-abouts? 
Does it hang, top or bottom? 
Can you toss it o’er your shoulder, 

with a continental shudder? 
… Or, oooh, somewhere about the middle?

Ay, I know not. Up top, mayhap.

May I see it?

See it?

Yes, if it be particularly astute, 
I may wish to borrow of it.
I have much hankering for a witty stew.

Stew? My wits? Thou would’st have my wits 

for a stew?

Nay, nay. They are in a stew already,
consternation set a’bubble.
Thou are he who has set his wit afire 
and cries to heaven for relief.

I? Afire? Give me a glass!
Give me drink that I be put out!

Thou are well put out already.
A glass, say’st thou?
Thou would’st inspect thy parts,
find wisdom in eyelashes,
truth in a carbuncle?
I will have no more of such parts.
Why, with wit thou may smile up a storm. 

‘Tis out, pray? The flamble?

Nay, ‘tis thou, knave, were out.
Therefore, clown, abandon!
Which is to say – in the vulgar – to leave 
Take heed – take to thy heels, 
if thou canst find them – in short, depart! 

Aye, sir. Rest you merry. 

But, fellow, come back betimes. 
“’Tis meat and drink to me to see a clown.” 
                        

The second poem, the tragedy, is titled "Time Stopped." It recounts a recent, very different experience. Here's the beginning of

Time Stopped

When I ask myself why, even in the bad moments, 
I wish to continue living, sometimes I answer, 

     ‘music’…
Perfect, that day we traveled to Harvard’s sweet old 

     Sanders Theater,
old wood, heart of wood, to hear “the Complete 

Brandenburg Concertos"

with friends, decades-old friends, Gail confessing 

     beforehand 
that the Brandenburgs were her ‘favorite music’
We climb the heavy stairs to the balcony 

     to look down upon
a rotating ensemble gifted with the power 

     to make things speak,
wholly given over to the task, as though 

     they loved it even more than we

Then, the elation continuing, we tramped 

     back down 
amid a tribe of devotees mostly grayer than we,
as if the herd had been culled and we lovers 

     of the immortals

left behind 
while younger bloods kicked up their heels 

on the campus green.
Late winter afternoon, though mild, light still 

     in the sky,
the love of beauty shining everywhere,
our hearts light, we cross the Yard and 

     near the gate,
the Square’s busy world humming just beyond… 

Gail, talking, everyone’s spirits still high, 

     suddenly ceasing
in mid-sentence, begins to fall, slumps 

     to the ground...

To read the rest of the poem, here's the link to 

Verse-Virtual 

https://verse-virtual.org/2023/April/knox-robert-2023-april.html?fbclid=IwAR2e9mgzL1B-WOF2NRIfHwKVTOlFgzbckvwZPakSWIpguF_Um1AaKif5bog