It seems March was in a rush and passed by in less than an eye blink and here we are in April and National Poetry Month is upon us. As I have done for several years, I’ve set myself a challenge for NaPoMo, this time involving sonnets and random prompts. Set myself up more like. I nearly floundered on day 2. Just how the hell does one write love on a piece of cutlery – that was my random. I survived and wrote a sonnet but now have a sense of trepidation when I call up the prompt as there is no predicting what I will get.

I do like a challenge, so I know damn well I will enjoy it, If like Day 2 it pushes my boundaries a bit that’s a good thing isn’t it? Getting out of the box and going for it is growth. No, it’s not tap dancing through Swindon town centre that is so far out of the box I would just get back in it Getting out of the box for me requires having some things that give me stability a bit like a kid learning to ride a bike. Sonnets and love are my stabilizers this month then – not sure what Old Billy Shakespeare would say to that, pretty sure it would be a Thespian insult though. Something like “Thou yeasty earth-vexing haggard!!!” or my all-time favourite “Thou venomed unchin-snotted flax-wench!!” I can live with that!

Meme of the week

Seriously, even I wouldn’t want to enter that hell hole, but yes true enough

Now, most people I know are aware I am a bit nuts on Old Billy, so on that note my Hobbitty Witterbugs will now include a gift from Old Billy of one of his sonnets. For ease of knowing where I am at, I have asked him to start with Sonnet 1.

Sonnet 1: From fairest creatures we desire increase by William Shakespeare

From fairest creatures we desire increase,
That thereby beauty’s rose might never die,
But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender heir might bear his memory;
But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed’st thy light’s flame with self-substantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.
Thou that art now the world’s fresh ornament
And only herald to the gaudy spring,
Within thine own bud buriest thy content,
And, tender churl, mak’st waste in niggarding*
Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
To eat the world’s due, by the grave and thee

*from the OED – Niggard is an excessively parsimonious, miserly, or stingy person

And on cue, the transporter brings in Sir Patrick who read Old Billy’s sonnets so beautifully during Covid lockdown