Here’s to trying to write like Shakespeare! Take a draft of cognac, and proceed with caution. (By the way, I think it’s very useful to write in rigid metrical rhythms. Free verse is so undisciplined that most of the time it’s junk. Compare writing to training for a marathon, or practicing for a piano concerto competition. The performance shines at the peak of the mountain. Once you’ve trained yourself to handle the rarified air, you can run up and grab it. But to get that effortlessness of delivery requires hours of practice. If you want to improve, wait for the chocolate! Delayed gratification is best, I assure you! In the meantime, buckle down and do hard things.)
My lover’s love is on me every day,
Around me in a cloud of shining ends,
Its fragments clinging to my shoes like hay,
Its heady scent inhaled by foes and friends.
Gold is hard to bear upon one’s back;
a living, beating heart is harder still.
Beneath the sheen of pleasantries and tact,
a heart hides diamonds rough to cut with skill.
If I to him my weighty treasure give,
Then his heart I must carry in return.
In steady, gilded glory I will live –
But what if that strict rider I do spurn?
Then wild horse I will race in open plains,
forever tangled up in empty reins.