Bloody Bill Poem by Dave SmithWhite

I blame it all on bloody Bill Shakespeare.
I blame it all on the plays of the Bard.
No counterfeit feelings are faked there.
True love, they teach, can be hard.

I blame it all on bloody Bill Shakespeare,
And the furious battles of yore.
The glory encrusted and caked there,
Stain the pages of history with gore.

I could give you a pamphlet,
On the pride of Prince Hamlet,
And the bodies that litter the stage.
In his testosterone funk, this prototype punk,
Junked the state, his family, the age.

I blame it all on bloody Bill Shakespeare.
I blame it all on plays like Othello.
The depiction of evil it makes there:
All green-eyed monsters are yellow!

I blame it all on bloody Bill Shakespeare.
On plays like A Winter's Tale.
The exile of loved ones forsaken there,
Pay their tribute to the jealous male.

I can give you a journal, of Sonnets eternal,
Of horizons receding, and the briefness of life.
You too can go crazy in pursuit of dark ladies,
And that handsome young man,
That might be a wife!

I blame it all on bloody Bill Shakespeare,
And the wisdom that marks the Fool.
On the hubris and folly of King Lear,
Who was vain, mean-spirited, and cruel.

I blame it all on bloody Bill Shakespeare,
Like a Timon that curses the world.
That suffers not one even break there,
And remains, at the end, unfulfilled.

I could give you a dossier, on Shylock and Portia,
And the fixed compound interest on flesh.
With the merchant's resurgence,
There's the moral detergent,
And the scour of satire and jest.

I blame it all on bloody Bill Shakespeare.
On plays like Richard the Third.
The knowing self-hatred displayed there,
Resolving in murder absurd.

I blame it all on bloody Bill Shakespeare.
I blame it all on plays like Macbeth.
The fate of great kingdoms are staked there;
On domestic ambitions and death.

So why should it please ya, to see Julius Caesar,
A victim of noble betrayal?
With true friends like Brutus, to help execute us,
What other excuses to fail?

I blame it all on bloody Bill Shakespeare.
I blame it all on the plays of the Bard.
This pain in the heart, how it aches there;
One more star-crossed lover is scarred.