Boy Shakespeare’s Tale

by Thelma Phillips, Convener, Creative Writing Group

Oh i’faith, homework on Macbeth, King of the Scotlands. I know forsooth on the morrow I will be a whining schoolboy with a satchel creeping like a snail unwillingly to school if I fail to learn this set piece. It’s a chronicle of wasted time. I sigh. Oh, how I sigh and watch the candle burn. Macbeth, King for the Scots from 1040. He challenged his cousin Duncan for the throne, defeating him in battle.  Seventeen years he ruled then to be killed by Duncan’s son. What more can I put on my parchment? I know of no romance in his life, no thrills or adventure. What if he took a wife, a Lady Macbeth? I could improve on this history with verse of an ambitious wife, lusting for blood, then ghosts to haunt her soul.  There’s more to it. There’s nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.

Twelve nights have I been writing my set assignment and tonight is the twelfth. I feel the cane already poised to strike, for lack of production. It’s to be or not to be. I think I’ll sigh no more. It’s Mistress Hathaway that fills my ever wakeful hours. Good sooth, she is the queen of curds and cream. Under the greenwood trees she loves to lie with me, but it’s much ado about nothing, it’s as she likes it. I’d make her a beauty, age cannot wither her. I compare her to a summer’s day; she’s my midsummer night’s dream.

When I’m eighteen and finish schooling, I’ll wed her, go to London to make my fortune. Yet all that glistens is not gold, often have I heard that told and ambition is made of sterner stuff. I’ll write a play about a lover and his lass – hey ho. Why the world’s my oyster. I will to London and join the players there as the course of true love never did run sooth. Love looks not with the eyes but with the mind. What matters if Anne is years my senior. So it will be to London I will venture and bell, book and candle shall not drive me back when gold and silver beckons me to come on. Oh, we are such stuff as dreams are made on.

Back to Macbeth, born 1005, died 1057. Now I’ll round it with a sleep.

 

 CREATIVE WRITING GROUP

                     My Mind is a Blank

by Ruth Penton, Creative writing Group

I’m sorry, I say, my mind is a blank

I can’t remember and I’m not playing a prank

I’m suffering one of the pitfalls of age

For failure in memory goes with this stage.

 

I have all this data stuck in my brain

It gets overloaded and I have to strain

To ferret out facts I want to know

I get there at last but it’s awfully slow!

 

My mind goes in circles sometimes as I seek

To recall where I went and with whom last week

I know it’ll come to me if I just wait

And soon I’ll remember it, even the date!

 

I see an old friend one day on the street

I know her well but stopping to greet

I’ve forgotten her name, what can I do?

I’ll have to smile and bluff my way through.

 

I’m doing a crossword when I get hung

On a word that’s just on the tip of my tongue

Then later from nowhere it pops into my head

As I’m doing the housework or slicing the bread.

 

I go to the Eftpost machine for some dough

But can I remember my pin number? –no!

I think there’s a two and a four in the mix

Is it 249, 429 – and does it end in a six?

 

I withdraw my card and go into the bank

And admit to the teller my mind is a blank

I’ve forgotten my pin and my mum’s maiden name

I’m totally befuddled but who can I blame?

 

I just have to accept it’s my ongoing fate

To forget my phone number and car number plate

Who cares if I fail every memory test

I’ll recall important things ignoring the rest.