Poem: "A Brief History of Shakespeare"
This poem came out of the March 5, 2013 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by a prompt from chordatesrock regarding autism and echolalia. Shakespeare kind of turned the idea upside down, preferring the grace of memorized lines to the garble of original composition. The following poem is a look at how the world sees him, how he sees himself, and how he got where he is. It has been sponsored by technoshaman. You can read more about An Army of One: The Autistic Secession in Space. Shakespeare first appears in "Do Wrong to None."
A Brief History of Shakespeare
He grows up with parents
who do not understand him
and therapists who cannot comprehend
how he manages to decode their doublespeak
when he can barely speak.
King Midas has ass's ears! (1)
the little boy whispers to the reeds
around the pond in the middle of the park.
He tells them secrets to tell the wind.
Nothing is as it seems
and he hungers after hidden truths.
He grows up with people
who set expectations that are alien to him,
who want him to speak in his own words
but never have the patience to listen
and never appreciate what he says.
He who laughs last, laughs best, (2)
the teen says when people make fun of him
and somehow they never get it.
He learns to accept a laugh track,
to anticipate it, to bend himself around it.
Everyone tells him that the way he speaks
is wrong, unnatural, unacceptable.
He does not let that stop him,
will not let anything at all stop him.
He wants the words whole and beautiful in his mouth,
wants sentences as smooth and precious as a string of pearls.
He does not want the broken things he was born with,
does not want to struggle and squeak his way
through phrases that fragment like wet paper
when he tries to make his own.
Why, I was there and so
can tell the whole sad, sorry tale, (3)
the young man says, because he refuses to be silent.
Never mind that he does not tell it
the way they would like it told --
he can read between the lines of what they say
and he knows so much more than he can ever say.
The words are there for the taking,
and no matter how much he takes
there will always be more for the next person.
He wants them and he takes them
like a castle, like a galleon,
filling the treasure-hall of his memory
with things he can use and never use up.
We shall defend our island,
he says when he reads the daily news
about the war between the Galactic Arms.
We shall never surrender. (4)
Nobody takes him seriously at first,
but the war drags on and on, they run low on soldiers,
and he ferrets out meaning from enemy phrases.
He reads classics and trash, news and gossip,
consumes text and video and conversation.
He pulls them into himself, swallows an ocean
of rain and tears and pearls of wisdom.
He makes them his, these words dipped in history,
these sentences that already mean what he wants to say.
In the final choice a soldier's pack
is not so heavy as a prisoner's chains, (5)
he says during training
when he does so many things wrong
and they keep him only for what he can do
so much better than anyone else.
They do not realize how much he already knows this.
They won't call him stupid
if he can quote the greatest speakers of all time.
They might still call him a freak,
but he can live with this, as long as
he has someone else's tongue in his mouth
to tell the truths that need to be told.
A life spent making mistakes
is not only more honorable,
but more useful than a life spent doing nothing, (6)
he says in the field when things go wrong.
You make that signal with your eyes,
lieutenant, not your pants! another soldier says. (7)
He is grateful for the assignment to Specialist rank.
The nickname, when it comes,
settles over his shoulders like an accolade:
Shakespeare.
Bard of Bards.
Oh yes, he can live with this.
You are what you do,
not what you say you'll do, (8)
he says after the codes have been cracked
and handed to him to pick out the meanings
like meat from a smashed nut.
And he does. He always does.
He has read Romeo and Juliet,
The Merchant of Venice, Twelfth Night,
A Midsummer Night's Dream --
all the ways of making and breaking people,
bringing them together or setting them apart.
These are the things he thinks of after the secession.
So we grew together like to a double cherry,
seeming parted, but yet an union in partition,
two lovely berries molded on one stem, (9)
he says when the deserters from
the Carinan and Orion armies
begin discussing ways to create
their own society in the Lacuna --
and some of them, not all,
but some of them actually get it.
* * *
Notes:
1) "King Midas has ass's ears." -- from the legend of King Midas.
2) "He who laughs last, laughs best." -- proverb.
3) "Why, I was there and so can tell the whole sad, sorry tale." -- The Sorting Hat, The Sorting Hat's New Song, Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling.
4) "We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender." -- Winston Churchill.
5) "In the final choice a soldier's pack is not so heavy as a prisoner's chains." -- Dwight D. Eisenhower.
6) "A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing." -- George Bernard Shaw.
7) The phrase "with your eyes, lieutenant, not your pants!" came from this post about autism.
8) “You are what you do, not what you say you'll do.” ― C.G. Jung.
9) “So we grew together like to a double cherry, seeming parted, but yet an union in partition, two lovely berries molded on one stem.” ― William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream.
A Brief History of Shakespeare
He grows up with parents
who do not understand him
and therapists who cannot comprehend
how he manages to decode their doublespeak
when he can barely speak.
King Midas has ass's ears! (1)
the little boy whispers to the reeds
around the pond in the middle of the park.
He tells them secrets to tell the wind.
Nothing is as it seems
and he hungers after hidden truths.
He grows up with people
who set expectations that are alien to him,
who want him to speak in his own words
but never have the patience to listen
and never appreciate what he says.
He who laughs last, laughs best, (2)
the teen says when people make fun of him
and somehow they never get it.
He learns to accept a laugh track,
to anticipate it, to bend himself around it.
Everyone tells him that the way he speaks
is wrong, unnatural, unacceptable.
He does not let that stop him,
will not let anything at all stop him.
He wants the words whole and beautiful in his mouth,
wants sentences as smooth and precious as a string of pearls.
He does not want the broken things he was born with,
does not want to struggle and squeak his way
through phrases that fragment like wet paper
when he tries to make his own.
Why, I was there and so
can tell the whole sad, sorry tale, (3)
the young man says, because he refuses to be silent.
Never mind that he does not tell it
the way they would like it told --
he can read between the lines of what they say
and he knows so much more than he can ever say.
The words are there for the taking,
and no matter how much he takes
there will always be more for the next person.
He wants them and he takes them
like a castle, like a galleon,
filling the treasure-hall of his memory
with things he can use and never use up.
We shall defend our island,
he says when he reads the daily news
about the war between the Galactic Arms.
We shall never surrender. (4)
Nobody takes him seriously at first,
but the war drags on and on, they run low on soldiers,
and he ferrets out meaning from enemy phrases.
He reads classics and trash, news and gossip,
consumes text and video and conversation.
He pulls them into himself, swallows an ocean
of rain and tears and pearls of wisdom.
He makes them his, these words dipped in history,
these sentences that already mean what he wants to say.
In the final choice a soldier's pack
is not so heavy as a prisoner's chains, (5)
he says during training
when he does so many things wrong
and they keep him only for what he can do
so much better than anyone else.
They do not realize how much he already knows this.
They won't call him stupid
if he can quote the greatest speakers of all time.
They might still call him a freak,
but he can live with this, as long as
he has someone else's tongue in his mouth
to tell the truths that need to be told.
A life spent making mistakes
is not only more honorable,
but more useful than a life spent doing nothing, (6)
he says in the field when things go wrong.
You make that signal with your eyes,
lieutenant, not your pants! another soldier says. (7)
He is grateful for the assignment to Specialist rank.
The nickname, when it comes,
settles over his shoulders like an accolade:
Shakespeare.
Bard of Bards.
Oh yes, he can live with this.
You are what you do,
not what you say you'll do, (8)
he says after the codes have been cracked
and handed to him to pick out the meanings
like meat from a smashed nut.
And he does. He always does.
He has read Romeo and Juliet,
The Merchant of Venice, Twelfth Night,
A Midsummer Night's Dream --
all the ways of making and breaking people,
bringing them together or setting them apart.
These are the things he thinks of after the secession.
So we grew together like to a double cherry,
seeming parted, but yet an union in partition,
two lovely berries molded on one stem, (9)
he says when the deserters from
the Carinan and Orion armies
begin discussing ways to create
their own society in the Lacuna --
and some of them, not all,
but some of them actually get it.
* * *
Notes:
1) "King Midas has ass's ears." -- from the legend of King Midas.
2) "He who laughs last, laughs best." -- proverb.
3) "Why, I was there and so can tell the whole sad, sorry tale." -- The Sorting Hat, The Sorting Hat's New Song, Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling.
4) "We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender." -- Winston Churchill.
5) "In the final choice a soldier's pack is not so heavy as a prisoner's chains." -- Dwight D. Eisenhower.
6) "A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing." -- George Bernard Shaw.
7) The phrase "with your eyes, lieutenant, not your pants!" came from this post about autism.
8) “You are what you do, not what you say you'll do.” ― C.G. Jung.
9) “So we grew together like to a double cherry, seeming parted, but yet an union in partition, two lovely berries molded on one stem.” ― William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream.