A Poet of No Words

By Bud Koenemund

A 100 Word Story

For Lindsay

  Leaning against the edge of his desk, she spread her legs invitingly. Their eyes locked as his hands drifted upward, sliding under the hem of her little black dress. Finding the waistband of her panties, he dragged them downward; until the lace stretched between her knees.
  “What do you think?” she asked, watching his gaze fall.
  “Incredible,” he murmured.
  “That’s it?” she teased. “No poetry now? A sonnet, perhaps?”
  He struggled to find words in the maelstrom wracking his brain.
  “Tell me,” she cooed.
  “When I see you like this,” he confessed, kissing her flesh, “I can’t think about words.”

Six Haiku (August 2020 - March 2021)

By Bud Koenemund

Light
Your surreptitious

wave; an incandescent light

in a dreary day.

Declaration
I declare my love
to thee, for I know no way
but all or nothing.

Protection
I offer my heart,
and pray you will protect it
as I protect yours.

Duality
I’m the romantic
type who’ll write you sonnets; then
tie you to the bed.

Longing
I long to feel our
fingers intertwined, and hearts
racing as love grows.

Paradox
Slow motion woman,
you stimulate my senses
and quicken my heart.

There Once was a Man from Verona...

  I wrote this limerick (my first - and probably last) for the St. Patrick's Day contest on a local radio station. It didn't win, but that's just as well; The Mad Limerickeer just doesn't have the same ring as The Mad Sonneteer.

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There once was a man from Verona,
Whose wife was a bit of a stonah.
He caught her in bed
With a dealer named Ted,
And, now he lives all alonah.

Hell

I Dare You!

Two Haiku

By Bud Koenemund

In the Ear of the Beholder

For Kitty Boyce

"Fuck me!" Vulgar in

polite society. But,

welcome from your lips.

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Darkness and Light

For "Her."

Some say the darkness

is as much a gift as light.

My heart disagrees.

The Commandments of Will

So, I've been digging through The Bible, and I've discovered several more of God's commandments meant to be obeyed without question or interpretation:

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The Commandments of Will
(Researched and collected by The Mad Sonneteer)

1. The Word of Will is eternal and unchanging. To question His authorship shall be heresy. (Lev. 28: 13-14)

2. Thou shalt not take the name of Will in vain. (Deut. 35: 17)

3. Thou shalt remember the sonnets and keep them holy. (Ex. 41: 7)

4. Thou shalt not worship Oxford as I have commanded thee worship Will. (Lev. 28: 24)

5. Thou shalt smite Oxfordians with the Word of Will that they might repent their sin. (Deut. 35: 33)

6. Thou shalt not lie with an Oxfordian as with a Stratfordian. (Lev. 28: 69)

7. The Oxfordian lifestyle shall be considered an abomination, and the blasphemous shall burn in the eternal fires of summer-session Remedial English classes. (Lev. 28: 10-11)

8. Thou shalt not suffer Russell Brand to portray any character of Will. (Prov. 32: 67)

Will's Power

For the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust's Blogging Shakespeare Birthday Project - 23 April 2011
(www.happybirthdayshakespeare.com)

O for a muse of fire, that would ascend the brightest Heaven of invention...
- William Shakespeare, Henry V

Usually – though not always – it’s best to begin…well, at the beginning. The first Shakespeare I remember being exposed to was in my eighth grade English class. We read Romeo and Juliet out loud, in class. I hated it! Being a shy kid, I resented being made to read in front of the class. And, I’ll admit, I didn’t get much of what Will was saying.

After R&J, we read Macbeth. That was better. Witches and sword fights, ghosts and bloody murders, suicide and a severed head – that was cool. Though, again, I didn’t understand many of the words, and I was too young to appreciate the language Will used.

The first Shakespeare I ever truly understood was Henry V. In 1991, I was serving in the United States Army in the Republic of Panama. One afternoon – in between missions to the darkest jungles you can imagine and cutthroat games of Dungeons & Dragons – one of my roommates, Darryl Weeden, got his hands on a VHS copy of Kenneth Branagh's film adaptation of the play. Darryl all but forced us – our other two roommates and I – to watch it with him.

I enjoyed it right from the start: Canterbury’s intrigue; Hal’s response to the Dauphin’s gift; his speech when treason is discovered in his midst; the siege of Harfleur; all of it. What truly set the hook, however, was that speech. The one Hal delivered to his men right before the battle of Agincourt:

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day. (4.3)

To borrow from Hal’s speech before the walls of Harfleur: Consider my sinews stiffened! Saying that I was blown away would be a gross understatement. The beauty of the language struck me. It wasn’t only what Hal said, but how he said it. The next day, I borrowed a copy of H5 from the base library and devoured it. That’s when my love of Shakespeare began. I read every play the library had. And, after I left the Army, I began buying my own copies of Will’s work.

These days, my Shakespeare collection rivals that of the local college library. I own three copies of the Complete Works, individual copies – in many cases multiple copies – of the plays and the sonnets, and numerous books about The Bard and his works.

In addition, I buy movie versions of every play I can get my hands on, and regularly attend stage productions of Will’s work performed by several theatre companies in and around New York City. Then, of course, there is the Shakespeare action figure, the Shakespeare bobblehead, the Shakespeare doll, the bottle of Shakesbeer, the skull…you see where I’m going here.

While I admire all of his works, Shakespeare’s Histories are my favorite plays. The jealousy, greed, and villainy; as well as the loyalty, bravery, and self-sacrifice portrayed in those 10 plays remains unmatched. Truthfully, is there a villain in literature better than Richard III? (One might make a strong case for Iago in Othello. But, did Iago have his own nephews killed? His own wife? Wait, ummm, scratch that last one, bad example!)

Of course, there are theories that Richard didn’t order the murders of the princes in the tower. Some think that King Henry VII (Richmond in Richard III) had them killed to strengthen his hold on the throne. And, that argument illuminates yet another way to appreciate these plays. As a student of history, I enjoy comparing Shakespeare’s version of events with that of the history books and the theorists.

Twenty years on, Henry V remains my absolute favorite play. I read it again every couple of years, I’ve seen three different stage versions, and I watch various film versions a few times each year. As I watch, I think about my roommates, and the other members of my unit. I think about how Darryl – the oldest of us; he was 24 and a fantastic artist serving in the Army to make enough money to attend art school – made us all watch the Branagh film, and how we were inspired. I think about how Shakespeare really got it right with those lines; how those guys, who I probably would’ve barely spoken to if I’d met them back “in the world,” became my brothers.

I laugh when I think about my adventures with those guys. Like the time 20 of us piled into a room to watch the animated dinosaur movie The Land Before Time. When an earthquake struck, and the baby dinosaur became separated from his mother, we – 20 trained soldiers; men who would kill with their bare hands, eat someone’s guts and ask for a second helping – had tears in our eyes. Though, none of us would ever admit to that.

I remember our “Pool Assaults;” a score of Infantrymen scaling the 10-foot high decorative concrete wall of the base pool in the middle of the night. We’d climb up to the 10-meter diving platform and all dive at once, then scurry back to the barracks, leaving a trail of water for the MPs to follow. Why? For no other reason than it was something to do. We were Infantrymen; we worked hard and played harder.

I think about the night my friend Ken Perkins cut open a Cyalume stick in an attempt to discover what made it glow in the dark. It spilled all over him when he split it open. He then proceeded to leave glowing hand and foot prints up and down the barracks hallway.

Or, I recall any of the dozens of other good times we had in spite of the heat and humidity, and between the push-ups, and the jungle, and the stuff I wish I could forget.

When Hal urges his men to the breach once more, I feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand up because I’ve been in situations that required that kind of bravery and I have had such brothers beside me.

That is where Will’s power truly lies. Not only can he use language to take me somewhere I’ve never been – Agincourt, Dunsinane, Verona, or Cyprus, for example – he can also take me back to the places I have. His writing connects the then and the now, the character and the reader.

When Romeo first sees Juliet, I know how he feels because his words remind me of the first time I saw the woman who broke my heart. When Hamlet contemplates suicide, I can feel his anguish because I've had those same arguments with myself. And, in the epilogue to A Midsummer Night's Dream, when Puck begs for my applause – "Give me your hands if we be friends" – I give it to him. No, not because I am a "merry wanderer of the night," but because he and his fellows have bewitched me with their words; words given to them – and in many cases created out of thin air for them – by the author.

William Shakespeare did not make me a poet – it took the aforementioned broken heart to do that. But, he lit the path by showing me how to use words to translate my feelings, experiences, and dreams into language. Using his form – the sonnet – just felt natural. (And, though some will argue that adherence to any form stifles creativity, I contend that it challenges a poet to become all the more creative.)

So, from The Mad Sonneteer to The Master, happy birthday, Will. “To me, fair Friend, you can never be old,/ For as you were when first your eye I eyed/ Such seems your beauty still.” – Sonnet XIV

Eyes: Young and Blue

Not a fan of my blue eyes. I adore brown. Who wants to swap?
- Lara Schutz, 22 February 2011


Photograph by Lara Schutz - copyright 2008


Eyes: young and blue. One matched pair, slightly used;
Called striking, on occasion. Asking trade.
No known impairments, still sparkle like new.
Seeking an extra-genetic upgrade;
Recessive genes – too slow in receding –
Have denied me the brown shade I adore.
Thus, I beg an exchange satisfying
Purely aesthetic desire, nothing more;
My mind will retain the burdens perceived
Within a scant two dozen years of sight;
Memories – good and bad only conceived –
Remain, to fade slowly in life’s twilight.
Alas, I know this yearning is but vain
Hope, tinged with an envy I can't constrain.

Once Upon a Time...

For "Her."

Let’s sit and write a sonnet together,
Just you and I. I’ll pour some drinks and play
Songs that still remind me, while you whisper
Words which linger in my ears. I’ll obey
Your charge wistfully, quickening the quill
To flagellate my soul in equal parts
Healing and torture, as grief beyond will
Suffocates the love that once filled my heart;
Anon we’ll return to the past; a time
I knew, even then, was but a broken
Fairy tale, and at the bell’s midnight chime
I am left a knight without his maiden.
I'll fill this page with things I long to say,
For your magic oft’ fades ere light of day.

Sleep No More!

For Arthur H. Monigold

"Macbeth does murder sleep." Alas, I fear,
For all his genius, the Bard is mistook.
No, it was not the good Scot who crept near,
To steal innocent slumber, like a crook;
Nor did Claudius truly wrack sweet dreams
With "murder most foul" in Denmark’s garden.
'Tis but fiction, though foul indeed it seems
When guards prey upon moments unguarded;
In truth, 'twas one familial – one of trust,
That condemned me with his lies and incest,
Who used a child to sate his vile lust,
And damned me to endless nights without rest.
Weep, not for Dunsinane and Elsinore,
But for the child that lives, yet sleeps no more!

There's Nothing More to See Here

The chalk outline, white against the concrete,
Marks the scene of the crime, as a crowd
Gathers, like greedy vultures, in the street.
“Did someone jump?” a voice calls out loud;
“Heart attack?” “Yes,” a cop answers, as he
Unspools police tape to control the mob.
“Well…no,” he thinks to himself. “Not really.”
“People, move back now, let me do my job!”
As a cold drizzle falls, he turns to see
Initials scrawled inside the dusty heart
Blur slowly, then melt away in a sea
Of tears, as two lovers, now torn, depart.
“Folks,” the cop says, as a dream disappears,
“Move along; there’s nothing more to see here!”

Poets Never Really Die by Suicide

The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry. – Ernest Hemingway

Poets never really die by suicide,
The sad victims of self-inflicted harm;
Though it’s often the cause the Times will cite,
In obits written while the body’s still warm;
They do not succumb to mere oven gas,
Single-car “accidents” on long, straight roads,
Exposure, starvation, or shotgun blasts;
Nor to drowning, slit wrists, or overdose;
Sadly, many fall long before they jump,
Or break their necks at the end of a rope;
They die when faith is lost and spirits slump;
When this mortal life leaves them without hope.
The cause of death need not be picked apart,
For poets only die of broken hearts.

A Simple Word Too Easily Said

A sonnet for Kristen Brownell

Lord, how can so small a word cause such pain?
Indeed, the gift becomes too abstract when
Words, easily said, fall like drops of rain
On the ocean, and fool even wise men;
Oh, how the promises the heart believes,
When it dares to hope, break upon the rocks
Of high speech – but feelings only conceived –
Then sink down into the depths of self-mock;
Verses and oaths so quickly lose their worth
When once solemn pledges become dilute
Through casual repetition and dearth
Of the emotion real and absolute.
Even sweet words, spoke too oft’, turn sour,
And kill the root of this precious flower.