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Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? (Sonnet 18)
Shall I compare thee to a winter’s day? (eine parodie)
William Shakespeare, 1564 – 1616
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to Time thou grow’st.
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Lawrence Spiro (July 2018)
Shall I compare you to a winter’s day?
You are much more frigid, darkly and bleak.
Vicious winds do blow under skies bleak gray,
And cowardly spring cringes meek and weak.
Sometime too cold the eye of heaven hides,
And often slides slow behind ice and cold;
And every fair from fair cracks and cries,
That the whisper of warmth is left untold.
But your endless winter is a long lick,
Your temper and nonsense are getting old,
Only death listens to hear your clock’s tick,
When in eternal lines to time you scold.
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, I’ve had enough of thee.
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The following poems were written by Dan Friedman. Dan is a playwright and poet and the artistic director of the Castillo Theatre in Manhattan.
Montauk in Late December
It’s hard to stay
blue
around here, this time of year.
The sun,
pushed to the southern horizon,
weary with winter,
does her best
as slate colored clouds and translucent white mists slip and slide
every which way.
The sun hip-hops between cracks in the layers of gray,
while white winds howl in triumph,
as if remembering a long-ago ice age.
Sand stings our eyes as,
bent into the cold,
we walk
with our tough little beach dog
into January.
These following two poems were written soon after the passing of Reggie, “the tough little beach dog” referenced above.
Remembering Reggie 1
Low tide
Sand bars
I take off my shoes, walk in the water
Sand between toes
Towing the line is exhausting
I zig-zag through the sand
Walking nowhere, feeling at home
Where the dunes meet the waves
Where the gulls gather to philosophize
Where our little dog used to run
Where I, with my aching feet, can no longer run
Where the sun sizzles into the sea
Every evening
We walk
I miss him
Hold your hand
And keep walking.
Remembering Reggie 2
Another day of sun and surf
Ends with a grilled steak
And cold vodka
Ends with an empty couch where he used to dig a nest and fall asleep
Ends with not having to take him out
Ends without his head resting on my leg
But then again,
I don’t believe in endings
