Shakespeare’s Quills Poem by Sofiul Azam

“Lest the wise world should look into your moan,
And mock you with me after I am gone.” – W. Shakespeare

1.

No, I don’t think you Shakespeare would have
ever thought of your quills as things necessarily
different from buttons on my keyboard, and of paper
as poles apart from my computer screen; though

all that visible ink always painted your fingers,
the other ink in thoughts garnished with your feelings,
mine remain unmarked. Anyway, the thing is – all
of your journeys you put down on uneven pages

for one generation of book-worms after another
ended in life’s farthest regions far beyond the horizon,
with flags of your triumph fast flying. I wonder
if you would have now bought an air-plane ticket.

We all hollow poor puppets do nothing but follow
the tracks tycoons have trodden for a hard bargain.

2.

I think we have barely gone past the ditch before,
that’s full of wriggling worms and dirt for sure – let
alone be so adventurous in your mind’s vehicle.
Dead tired as I am of pretty false glimmers,

cranks’ despair and all that jazz, I still remember
‘the hand that writ it’ – roughly separated by a gulf
that comes between centuries and continents.
Yes, seeing all the virtues ‘rudely strumpeted’,

roadside beggars ‘needy nothing trimm’d in jollity’
and man’s ingratitude so much slicing as winter wind,
you shouted, ‘The holy! This life is most jolly.’
Oh, lords of the wise world must have thought:

from this world of lost content you fled to dwell
forever with vilest worms with such goddamn glory!