“Likest Thou My Facebook Post” A Shakespearean Sonnet by Paul Burgess

 

“Likest Thou My Facebook Post” A Shakespearean Sonnet by Paul Burgess [who’s finally put his M.A. in Renaissance Studies to use;)]

Remember now, while resting in thy seat,
How friends who hath the fame of being true
Inform themselves of what their friend doth eat
And sundry other things that friend might do.
Perforce thou needest soon that “Like” to click
If in thee doth a mote of mercy live.
For seconds, as if swords, my heart now prick
Whilst wait I for what’s only thine to give—
A “Like” to say thy care for me is great,
As care that hath a holy man for God,
When showing care of thine for my update
By clicking that’s akin to heads that nod.
If likest thou not my new Facebook post,
Of myself, anon, I’ll make a ghastly ghost.

Advertisement

“Lost Cat” an Elizabethan Sonnet by Paul Burgess

While watering the plants today, I heard
The ring of metal tags then saw a cat
And wondered whether he’d pursued a bird
Too far and gotten lost. He was as fat
And clean, from furry head to furry paw,
As any loving person’s treasured pet.
A little like one running from the law—
Eluding officers’ circling, dragging net—
He’d often hide in bushes and in trees.
His eyes appeared to say, “It’s not a game.
I’m scared and want again my life of ease.”
He fled before the tags revealed his name.
I hope his face won’t soon appear on pines
In “Help-Me-Find-My-Precious-Kitty” signs.

“Elegy for a Cow”

“An Elegy for a Cow” [An Elizabethan Sonnet by Paul Burgess]

A mockingbird’s demise is sad, no doubt,
But rarely does one raise a single brow—
No, not a man it seems does cry or pout—
When flies begin to feast upon a cow.
No thought is spared the weeping widowed bull
Who never could replace the love she gave,
Who lacks the milk to keep their children full,
Who can’t afford a spade to dig her grave,
Who knows, alas, his cherished, mooing mate
With leather tanners soon will have to meet—
Because it’s destiny, says the Book of Fate,
To be some guy or gal’s reclining seat—
Whose beefy bovine tears inscribe in soil
These lines produced by bullish sweat and toil.