Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Oh hang on - that’s been done but hey

What about a song? I could write one of those

Something sloppy, something clichéd,

Something chockablock full of purple prose

Something to put the light back in your eyes

Something guaranteed to make you despise

Me less than you do, have done, will do

It used to be fun but the elusive spark

Primeval, urgent rolls in the park

Sunday mornings on a sea of passion

Bed, Classic FM, coffee, jam and croissant

Are things of past, of yore, of history,

Your dressing up games…

“Is that a light sabre in your pocket, Darth,

Or are you just pleased to see me?”

Our love was like a red, red rose

One too many pricks

And fragile in the day’s last glow

Bright blooms crushed in anger, in worthless, momentary sin

And in the aftermath

Who can tell where petal ends and blood begins

Word upon word like fuel on the fire

Skirting truths, beating back hard

Nagging hunger pangs of true desire.

No man’s an island they, with wisest eyes, proclaim

But who’d dare be lost on you with

Nothing but vacuum where your eyes should be

No food of love, but stodgy, fat soliloquy

Sod Will Shakespeare and his kill’d lawyers

I shall compare thee to a summer’s day

So rare, so soon to end, so yesterday.