Everyone packs a spare Tudor costume in their suitcase, right? Happenstance found me in England, on the occasion of Good Queen Bess’s Platinum Jubilee, and as far as I could see, the celebrations seemed to be progressing Bardless. Taking it upon myself to remedy this shortfall, I legged it, via a horseless carriage, to Buckingham Palace. Respect needed to be paid, on behalf of the Arts, most particularly, we poets, who are so oft’ left slumped o’er our desks, in dingy garrets, without so much as a groat’s worth of bread (or wine) to toast a monarch with. It pleaseth me to see, that even after some 406 years dead, common-folk still remembered me. (That’s if you believe that the Stratford man was Shakes-peare.)
“Oi! Shakespeare, I thought you wus dead!”
“I think you’ll find the Bard is still very much alive,” I quipped, “things have certainly changed in five centuries!”
Many required a portrait with me courtesy of curious-looking memory machines that many persons held aloft.
“Give us a smile! Waggle-Dagger!” Naturally, I obliged. (Those Australians are amusing!)
Later, before the palace, I bowed toward Her Queen’s majesty and she waved back, but amidst the throng as I was, she may well have been waving at her gadzillion other subjects. Still, it was a good day’s sport and when I returned, I cut myself a fresh quill and began a new sonnet…
Sonnet 155 (CLV).
Shall I compare thee to a hologram…