The Weekly Poem

How long will a man lie i' the earth ere he rot?

You say that you’re hiring a digger

To lift up my crossbones and skull –

Are the fish that you fry never bigger?

Isn’t grave-robbing awfully dull?

You won’t find my Lear. My brain’s done a bunk –

Though I hear that you’re asking, did Shakespeare smoke skunk?

I can’t see the sense in exhuming

What’s left of me after my death –

Besides, you may find that I’m fuming

About Roman Polanski’s Macbeth –

Not to mention the cut-splits of bloody Baz Luhrmann.

Don’t I ever get read now? Thought not. End of sermon.

Imagine the heritage income

A tour of my bone-bits would make –

If you think that that makes it fair dinkum,

Then you’ve made a colossal mistake.

I don’t like the fans. I’m an audience-phobe.

And no, I never performed in The Globe.

How can I stop you from stealing?

I can give you my second-best curse.

I am long in the tooth, but I’m feeling

That I’ve taken a turn for the worse.

Yes why don’t you use your new laser-sharp scanner?

Just don’t stage a meeting with Mirren and Branagh.

Richard the Third may well love it,

After years of my blackening his name.

For as for me, prof, I say ‘Shove it’,

Though I see that you’re here all the same.

Crack! Here you come, with my souls to awaken –

Why two of me? Well, this is Marlowe. That’s Bacon.