"Anatomy and Destiny" invade a Thursday Shakespeare Workshop

On Thursday William Shakespeare comes into our view

inside a workshop of this school we share with you,

but it can enter into your prov-in-ces too

if you will take the time to grab a book or two,

or if you still are un-der-age or there-un-to,

I guess that Master Internet will have to do.

When yesterday, while planning for the Shakespeare year ahead,

new personal discourse kept in-ter-fer-ing with my head

and dis-com-bob-u-lat-ing everything I did or said

so much that afterwards . . . connections made before . . . were dead,

my routine thoughts suc-cumbed to cre-a-tiv-i-ty instead.

Now creativity exceeds my powers to explain,

but when it strikes, it comes like light-ning in a driving rain,

and you can no more hide from it, or run away from it,

than can ex-pand-ing air avoid mad thun-der-ing at it.

The in-ter-rup-tion of my mind per-form-ing Richards Two and Three

co-jan-gled with my dream of writing Shakespeare from this cen-tu-ry,

so to that precious friend who per-son-al-ly in-ter-rup-ted me,

I owe emergence of the Richard Four who sits in front of me

now begging me, and you, to be inscribed in verse im-mor-tal-ly.

Oh yes, dear friends, life-long ambition likes no little bounds

when eighty years of living still inside your heart abounds,

and cu-ri-os-i-ty still cul-ti-vates your daily rounds,

and from each person and per-cep-tion you hear pleasant sounds,

and every friend and en-e-my provides un-shake-a-bly firm grounds.

Today I only have four simple starting lines to offer you,

but if my Shakespeare writing project should inspire and beckon you,

this sample of our modern Richard Four's distinctive point of view

will hopefully inspire astute reaction and response from you;

or when identity of this historic Richard dawns on you,

you will help out by writing lines on him, or people that he knew,

enhancing them with insights and emotions from your point of view.

RICHARD THE FOURTH

A new Shake-spear-e-an style play of modern times

by Max J. Havlick and his friends in workshop rhymes.

ACT 1

SCENE 1. Washington, D.C., The Oval Office

Enter Richard, President, with two of his top aides.

Richard. Now is our springtime dawning with in-cip-i-ent success,

and we, the gifted few, the for-tu-nate re-cip-i-ents of it;

for we from all our suf-fer-ing shall seek and find redress,

sub-ject-ing our worst enemies to mer-ci-less-ly pay for it.

Final Note

The personal encounter that pro-voked . . . me into this new line of thinking

I moved into another hub to give . . . it special space and true recounting;

so if you need to satisfy that aspect of . . . your cu-ri-os-i-ty,

you'll find the sonnet soon on the HubPage . . . "Anatomy and Destiny."

"Anatomy and Destiny," how interruption opens up new inspiration. Workshop for Writers -- American Sonnet

These twenty-two lines to my poet friend ad-ven-tur-ing

to se-ri-ous-ly ques-tion not my mas-cu-lin-i-ty,

but whether in my eighty years, I had learned an-y-thing

about the phys-ics of a wom-an's fem-i-nin-i-ty,

but doing so, she jumbled up my mind on ev'ry-thing

and jarred me to creative thinking in-ad-ver-tent-ly.

Anatomy and Destiny

A New American Sonnet

(in twenty-two lines to my poet friend ad-ven-tur-ing

to se-ri-ous-ly ques-tion not my mas-cu-lin-i-ty,

but whether in my eighty years, I had learned an-y-thing

about the phys-ics of a woman's femininity,

but doing so

she jarred me to creative thinking in-ad-ver-tent-ly.)

Yes, dear, I'm well ac-quaint-ed with fe-male a-nat-o-my!

Sometimes, in ancient times, it often smoked and smoth-ered me!

I learned just how to read a woman's body and her dream,

and con-se-quent-ly make her squirm, and squeal, and scratch, and scream.

But your chaste verse spoke words to me of pure new po-et-ry

with no such deeper rel-e-vance to my own des-tin-y,

so such con-sid-er-a-tions never ventured to my mind

and I con-sid-er'd them con-sid-er-a-bly dated and behind.

When suddenly the two of us began . . . to touch and seem like one,

I was surprised and mystified at what . . . so quickly had begun,

but simply chalked it up to "there is noth- . . . -ing new under the sun,"

expecting such "love-sick-ness" to decline . . . as quickly as it had begun.

Then suddenly new features of your fem-i-nin-i-ty appear?

Just as I'm diving into Richard Two and Three from sweet Shakes-peare?

Could anyone have known your sweet intrusion to my consciousness

would force me to forget my tired old academic shabbiness

and make me count all over? -- "Richard one, two, three, and four," no less.

And who might serve us best as modern Richard Four? No one need guess,

for only one serves his-to-ry with such fresh com-e-dy and trag-e-dy,

and in that moment's flash, the major project I had wanted came to me.

What is a man to do, so many things . . . to love and things to do?

He needs not only one long life to live, . . . but ac-tu-al-ly, quite a few!

That is the end of son-ne-teer-ing for the moment,

but even when I make the simplest daily comment,

I can not seem to say or think a word without

the features of poetic verse fac-tor-ing out.