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The Allegro Quartet

Book Four

The Blue Star of Twilight

Michael Shea

Copyrighted in 2012 by the sole author, Michael J. D. Shea

©
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King Henry the Eighth is an evil old soul,

And an evil old soul is he.

He calls for his wives. And he calls for his troll

Who calls for the headsmen three.

The characters from Much Ado detest the royal swine

Who chops the heads off women. Whom he pickles in the brine

Of thirst for retribution for an endless stream of crimes

Existing only in his mind. They hear the phantom chimes

That sing of roots of wisdom rooted out by human swine.

And sing of tears that turn the stream of time to salty brine.

The purple cow has a purple soul,

And a purple soul has she.

She calls for the troll to abandon the goal

Of blood-red butchery.

Jack’s never seen a purple cow. He sometimes sees the crimes

That purple prose commits against the harmony of chimes

That ring their purest silver over Avon. Porcine swine;

That root for roots of being, living, loving, and the brine

That laps the ocean of infinity; avoid the crimes

Committed, by the purple prose, against the silver chimes.

Jack Falstaff is a merry old soul,

And a merry old soul is he.

He calls for the hours the silver bells toll

With a golden melody.

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“My dear,” says the lech, “Aristotle

Found these corny old jokes in a bottle

Where the blue breakers roar by the green Grecian shore:

A few grins won’t suffice; but a lot’ll.”

So sing a song of blackbirds that were baked within a pie.

And when the pie is opened, birds ar-tic-u-late each lie

That Henry Tudor wants to hear. The guys from Henry Fifth,

Off-stage, are not like Henry Eighth: He works the graveyard shift.

Outside their play, they opt for life, and opt for apple pie,

And pastures where the honest truths of real bullshit lie.

“Hey Jack,” says Ms. Nell, “These are jokes

That scandalize virtuous folks.

Shall we tell these jokes here? Lines amusing King Lear

When he reads about wenches and blokes.”

Jack’s never seen a purple cow. He’s sometimes sees a fifth

Beside the Avon: Characters who work the evening shift;

Performing scenes of anger as irrational as pi,

Or musical as heaven’s spheres where hope and wonder lie;

Have seen the slovens and the slobs who left an empty fifth

In parkland where the moods and whims of faithless weather shift.

“My dear,” says the lech, “The jokes here

Brought a leer to the lips of King Lear.

And a glare to the eyes of the Vatican’s guys

Who are shocked by the bare and the bear.”

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“Hey Jack,” says Ms. Nell, “They are shocked

When procreation’s prevented and blocked.

And that bear, greatly grizzled, heard a sermon that fizzled

Because of the claims that he mocked.”

Outside their play, King Henry’s men don’t use their lethal swords

For gouging cash from Governors. Who pound, with heavy boards,

The pates of characters who pain the members of the Board

Because their acting’s emptying the vault where money’s stored.

Their acting’s dull. Their hopes are dead; inanimate as swords

That cut the jobs of desperate souls ignored by brass and Boards.

“My dear,” says the lech, “Hear that bell?

It’s sounding the sorrowful knell

Of limericks penned by hacks who offend

‘Cause they can’t rhime or reezun or spel.”

Jack’s never seen a purple cow. He’s sometimes sees the Board

Empurpled by their rage because the loonies they have stored --

In vaults below the stage that rings with sweeping steel swords

Behaving with a fury that’s a feature of the Board’s --

Were captured by the tax-man. Stratford’s sterling-stealing Board,

However, has a hiding hole where grounded loons are stored.

“Hey Jack,” says Ms. Nell, “Here’s a joke

Concerning a wench and a bloke

The sage Aristotle found ensconced in a bottle

That he dropped on a rock. And it broke.”

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“My dear,” says the lech, “Was the joke

Ensconced in the bottle? Or the bloke

And the Aegean chick? ‘Cause the language can trick

Naked Apes evolution awoke.”

Outside their play, they never find a way to gain some dough,

Or earn some bread to buy the bread the breadfruit gardeners grow.

And lacking bread and marmalade, they live on turnip rinds,

And scraps of moldy ham and corn their dumpster diving finds.

And so they live in Stratford town, bereft of bread and dough,

And dine upon the “mildewed ear” the words of Hamlet grow.

“Hey Jack,” says Ms. Nell, “The guy and the chick

Escaped from the bottle. The trick

Is to get us back in, where we can’t commit sin

‘Cause there’s no space for the candle and wick.”

Jack’s never seen a purple cow. He’s sometimes sees the rinds

On purple cheese from purple milk from purple cows. He finds

The cheese distinctly nutty; like the Governors for dough

Where loonie nests and greenback hills and tons of toonies grow.

And on their golden money tree, the bark is like the rinds

On lemons sharp as dirks the fevered mind of Mackers finds.

“Hey Nell,” says the lech, “When the bottle broke

It released an existential joke:

A jest of God bereft in Nod;

The human race the morning of the world awoke.”

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“Hey Jack,” says Ms. Nell, “I often think

Of the wonders my gazing eyes drink

From the celestial big-dipper that pours liquid light near the kipper:

Near Pisces, while stars and moon sink.”

And so they live on moldy ham. That’s all they can afford.

Their former jobs have felt the jabs inflicted by the Board:

The jabs and stabs of daggers that have cut those hams adrift

From paychecks that they once received for acting Henry Fifth.

They never go to see a play, because they can’t afford

Will’s silver words: Those golden lines enrich the boards and Board.

“My dear,” says the lech, “The night skies

Are wondrous. Although my mind tries

To comprehend the scope of space, my searching thoughts can only trace

The stars reduced to little lights reflected in my eyes.”

Jack’s never seen a purple cow. He sometimes hears, adrift

Above the Avon, grief and joy and longing: Ludwig’s fifth,

Allegro three times over, as heart and mind afford

A wonder and a wondering the chairman of the bored

Will never feel. Under evening clouds afloat, adrift,

And lilac as the bloom of spring, Jack listens to the fifth.

“Hey Jack,” says Ms. Nell, “The stars and the moon

Sink beneath the western horizon. And so soon,

The daylight hides the universe. And forgetting the cosmos, we hear word of worse

Or worst. And this giddy globe revolves toward noon.”

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“My dear,” says the lech, “When the apples of the moon

Are argentine as the silver spoon

A rich person inherits, the night-sky then merits

Our wonder laid low by high noon.”

So now they act like Yankee guys who try to stretch a buck

Until the greenback screams in pain because its back is stuck

Against its ventral surface. Not the loonie: For it flies

Away when its mishandled by the fierce Canajun guys.

The loonie and the toonie and the sawbuck and the buck

Are sparse upon “the sticking place” where Macker’s income’s stuck.

“Hey Jack,” says Ms. Nell, “At noon I hear the silver chimes

Of the Angelus from Saint Joe’s church. And the chiming rhymes

Out lines of melody, above the Avon, that seek an azure heavens-haven

From the suffering of our time and times.”

Jack’s never seen a purple cow. He sometimes sees the flies

Up high against a purple sky. At eventide, the guys

And girls are playing softball. Falstaff doesn’t want to buck

The fates by walking under clouds in which some balls are stuck.

When fellows swing the bat too hard, the cork and leather flies

So high the laughing evening steals softballs from those guys.

“My dear,” says the lech, “So much pain

Descends upon souls. And the rain

Descends upon Earth. And the earth then gives birth

To small trees and their sighing refrain.”

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“Hey Jack,” says Ms. Nell, “Saplings are soughing and sighing

About souls suffering; some living, some dying.

Yet those sad souls find ease when they picture the trees

Shedding rain-drops when weeping willows are crying.”

The hams survive on turnips til, completely out of cash,

They try to qualify for funds the cutback artists slash.

They try to fly from poverty upon the golden wings

Of loonies that will take them where the cheerful goldfinch sings.

The goldfinch sings of gold that rings the melodies of cash:

Gold rings in ears of lethal thieves, in scenes where slayers slash.

“My dear,” says the lech, “On Avon’s shore

The willows are drinking in more

Of the water from clouds that form ashen shrouds

For rainy-day thoughts that open the door.”

Jack’s never seen a purple cow. He sometimes see the wings

Of purple martins soaring where the nightingale sings.

That odd: No nightingales sing in Stratford, Ont. No cash

Should bet its future on the markets deeds of bankers slash

To strips of battered bears. Then martins, purple as the wings

Of fleeting evening, hear the lamentations Falstaff sings.

“Hey Jack,” says Ms. Nell, “They open the door

To compassion for souls who are suffering more

Than our thoughts comprehend: When pain and grief rend

The lives of the brave and the poor.”

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“My dear,” says the lech, “In Silver Apples we spoke

About sex, in light lines that evoke

Some laughter. But after;

That’s now; we have other fires to stoke.”

But welfare’s not for warfare: Social workers think they might

Intend to use their cheques to buy a battle-axe to bite

Their mediaeval foes, so Hank could rule unruly France,

And lead his armoured fighters in a clumsy, clanking dance

Of victory that’s founded, and will flounder, on the might

Of blades that gratify their lust with every lethal bite.

“Hey Jack,” says Ms. Nell, “Not the fires

In the loins and the groins of sex-seeking liars.

But the fire of pain that burns in the brain,

Though the eagle of thought soars and gyres.”

Jack’s never seen a purple cow. The purple cow’s in France.

The sheep is in the meadow. And the music’s in the dance.

The dance is in the music. And the weakness in the might

Of ‘time that takes survey of all the world’, yet knows the bite

Of vanishing to days long lost. La vache qui rit’s in France,

And everyone is in the whirl of time’s revolving dance.

“My dear,” says the lech, “A Purple Cow Walks into a Bar

Does not include a single scene set in a bar. And far

From being a book of jests and japes and jokes, this purple cow conjures and evokes

The light of truths that travel from a sorrowing star.”

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“Hey Jack,” says Ms. Nell, “Purple isn’t all

About the shadow beneath the ashen pall

Of overcast skies. For a lark, ascending, flies,

Toward azure heavens where seraphim call.”

Their victory would stain the glen, when they have blended blood

Of suffering humanity with Passion Dale’s mud.

As Passchendaele’s mud became the watery grave of guys

Whose passion, as in ‘crucified’, has pierced the angels’ eyes.

And now the angels see the hams, who shed their warlike blood

On stage, where boards were cloaked with slime and bodies caked with mud.

“My dear,” says the lech, “Those angels call,

From mountain-cloud to mountain-cloud, for all

The happiness the banner of love has unfurled, and all the joys that live in this world,

To lighten the lot of suffering souls in the hall.”

Jack’s never seen a purple cow. The purple prose -- of guys

Who steal time that lasts a month when ‘April’s in her eyes’,

And springtime seems to stop and stare, and hormones heat the blood,

And swallows swoop in airy grace, and flowers born of mud

Achieve perfection -- lilac prose is amethyst as guys

Who melt into the liquid depths of April’s violet eyes.

“Hey Jack,” says Ms. Nell, “In this antechamber, the hall

That leads from time to eternity, Eve’s story of the fall

Is not about first frosts and crimson leaves and high-flying geese and harvest sheaves

That hold the eyes and the heart in thrall.”

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“My dear,” says the lech, “In Genesis, Eve wrote

About the monsters in the moat

That Jehovah dug around the Garden after (S)He refused to forgive or pardon

The first people for getting God’s goat.”

The hams are out of money. And, they’re out of turnips too.

And Hank and all his cronies feel hunger. What to do

To keep themselves from deprivation in their northern land?

Where pine trees, maples, birches, and the polar star still stand;

Although the villains may succumb to want, and sorrow too,

And topple into early graves, as broken people do.

“Hey Jack,” says Ms. Nell, “A steel boat

Could carry us safely across that moat.

But the guarding angel Angelo, with seraphim and searing swords in tow,

Would then quote what Eve wrote.”

Jack’s never seen a purple cow. He often sees the land

Where trees of life and knowledge, mauve with pomegranates, stand:

The pale purple pomegranates, purpled by the two;

Both physical and mental pain: The injuries that do

Such bruising harm to heart and mind in Falstaff’s pleasant land,

And every nation where the trees of life and knowledge stand.

“My dear,” says the lech, “Eve wrote that we may never regain

The ever-ever-land-of-happiness and never-never-land-of-pain

Called the Garden of Paradise. So we should take Angelo’s advice,

And make the best of August heat and chill November rain.”
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“Hey Jack,” says Ms. Nell, “Have you ever seen a purple cow?

Have you ever seen a cerise sow?

Have you ever seen a man who’s green?

A tangerine then or a puce now?”

The trees and star are standing high above the stone-walled seas.

They break on shores besieged by winds the strength of Nature frees

From fetters that repressive hands of despots would employ

Until the waves have ceased to dance in wild, wanton joy:

The waves that dance in happiness when wanton, wild seas

Rejoice, enjoying liberties the hand of Justice frees.

“My dear,” says the lech, “What is puce?

Is it the hue of a lake-liking moose

That’s dining on lilies? Does puce give the willies

To a carmine cardinal and a Canada goose?”

Jack’s never seen a purple cow. The purple cows employ

The purple people milking them. The milkmaids, in their joy

Of life, are singing hurtin’ songs: A paradox, like seas

That nurture branching coral that will grow to landless trees.

Although the purple cows are blue, the milkmaids they employ

Are watching purple martins swoop in seeming swallow-joy.

“Hey Jack,” says Ms. Nell, “Like most guys,

You’re hopeless: You gaze at the skies

And don’t know that vault is the colour ‘cobalt’

When blue-green enters heavens-wards eyes.”

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“My dear,” says the lech, “Though I try

To see one, no cow grabs my eye

With her amethyst hue. ‘Neath the red, white, and blue,

The Yanks own a bull that they dye.”

And high above the northern land, the angels looking down

Upon the mediaeval heavies in the modern town,

Decide that they will save those guys from hunger’s gnawing teeth.

Its molars bite the stomachs of those mortals down beneath

The angels, flying featherless: Bereft of plumes, and down,

Of ducks with asses pointing up, absurd in Stratford town.

“Hey Jack,” says Ms. Nell, “The Marcans dye

That bovine magenta. Then they try

To bring him to Stratford. But Canada Customs says that hoard

Of American bull-flesh may never come nigh.”

Jack’s never seen a purple cow. And never seen the teeth

Of purple dinosaurs that live a thousand leagues beneath

The theatre. They are gnawing up, from underside of down,

Toward the unsuspecting souls in Stratford’s placid town.

Elected to the Parliament; the dinos sink their teeth

Into Justicia, with laws they trample her beneath.

“My dear,” says the lech, “Is cerise

The colour of King Lear’s rich leas?

The meadows foolish Lear proffered to two daughters who offered

The king no lee safe from life-breaking breakers and seas.”

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“Hey Jack,” says Ms. Nell, “‘Cerise’

Is a French word. I know that you sneeze

In one language only. Is that language lonely?

Is your brain a pod that can’t hold two peas?”

Immortal angels, up above the willow-sheltered grass

Beneath the reeking remnants that are left of gutted bass,

Have sympathy for villains who, within their bloody plays,

Are pitiless and merciless: Like napalm-raining days,

When jellied gasoline consumes the forests, farms, and grass;

And people, who are charred and seared as broiled Avon bass.

“My dear,” says the lech, “Let us see

If a purple cow can be found in the lea:

In a meadow King Lear gave away on his way to his grave

Near Dover’s cold and death-grey sea.”

Jack’s never seen a purple cow. The purple bovine plays

In meadows near the little western columbines; in days

When petals still are amethyst, and splendid in the grass,

Before a milk-white frost descends. The sunfish and the bass,

In muddy murky Avon, dream about Will Shakespeare’s plays

On summer nights: Midsummer dreams of spring and autumn days.

“Hey Jack,” says Ms. Nell, “That won’t work.

In Lear’s play; where homelessness, grief, and dying lurk;

The King of Britain and his lords own only British Herefords:

They’re red as the blood on Macker’s dirk.”

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“My dear,” says the lech, “Among the many perils in Stratford town,

The customers who eat at Big Mac’s joint are soon down

Among the crawlies where earthworms dine on Will’s fans who succumbed to the germs

That were fruitful and multiplied in meat from kinky kine and brown cowne.”

The chubby ducks are feeding, as each wiggling, waggling ass

Is drifting on the stream of time. The time has come to pass,

When drifting on the stream of thought, to think of many things;

Of Falstaff’s stomach, stabbing pain, of cabbages, and kings,

Of Lear’s three little barking dogs, and Jack’s enormous ass,

And ducks that float upon the stream where swans and seasons pass.

“Hey Jack,” says Ms. Nell, “Mackers will buy

King Lear’s Herefords. Then Big Mac will deep-fry

The flesh of those cattle. And then he will battle

The health inspectors who have watched Mac’s customers writhe, moan, and die.”

Jack’s never seen a purple cow. The purple cow sees things

Like little western flowers, amethyst as robes of kings

Who loose and launch their love-shafts idly. Bottom is an ass

Who sniffs the milk-white flowers, when midsummer hours pass

Halfway between the chaste beams of the wat’ry moon and things,

As gross as earth, that trouble dreams of sleeping sprites and kings.

“My dear,” says the lech, “That is true.

And Mac’s customers, thus, will turn blue.

Each will writhe. Each will scream. Then go belly-up in time’s stream;

Dead from offal too awful for making glue.”

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“Hey Jack,” says Ms. Nell, “There were quackers

In the Avon that you caught, then sold for fifty smackers.

They too went belly up in the stream of time: Will’s fans garnish mallards with Avon slime,

And eat those ducks on phony-cheesy crackers.”

King Hank the Fifth has realized they ought to grab the ducks.

And sell the fowl at market, where the loonies or the bucks

Of gourmets wait to fill the empty pockets of the gang

That needs the cash to pacify their stomachs’ Sturm und Drang.

Though Sturm will roil Avon’s waves, and Drang will rile ducks,

Some soothing may befall if one possesses loons or bucks.

“My dear,” says the lech, “Willow trees

Were shading those ducks and their fleas.

Then a pack of mallard-cooties crawled into my dear little booties.

And that is the reason I sneeze.”

Jack’s never seen a purple cow. He never sees the gang

Of purple cows that terrorize the horses. Sturm und Drang

Is rampant in those meadows where the snow-geese and the ducks

Descend on love-in-idleness. That purple flower bucks

Belief that Cupid’s love-shaft frets the spirit: Like the gang

Of purple cows disturbing days replete with Sturm und Drang.

“Hey Jack,” says Ms. Nell, “Your sneezing,

Your hacking and gagging and wheezing,

Are caused by the plague. You should leave for The Hague;

Or anywhere else would be pleasing.”

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“My dear,” says the lech, “I shall go

To Vincent van Gogh’s latest show.

When November glowers over Flemish towers, I’ll steal his paintings of purple flowers.

Then plant them by the turgid Avon’s torpid flow.”

Rich fans repair to restaurants renowned in Stratford town,

Where moneyed folk with pampered guts ignore the frightening frown

Of Fate that indicates that they should eat insipid mush,

Avoiding thus a destiny of rush and gush and flush.

Though money brags, the moneybags who visit Stratford town

Don’t crow, because the fowl they ate was foul as Fortune’s frown.

“Hey Jack,” says Ms. Nell, “The irises will grow in impressionistic swirls.

And the official flower of Stratford, curved into whorls and curls,

Will be picked, like the silver apples of the moon. And then, as purpled crowns, be strewn

On the sun-warmed hair of early summer’s girls.”

Jack’s never seen a purple cow. And never saw the mush

The purple cow was writing to the purple bull. The flush

Of victory has deepened mauve-hued Ferdinand. The town

Is humming with the rumour that the bullish bovine-frown

Of Ferdinand has disappeared; for, wooed and won by mush,

The purple bull’s enamoured where the crimson phlox are flush.

“My dear,” says the lech, “Then this thief shall return

The paintings to Vincent van Gogh. And I’ll earn

The artist’s most grateful feelings en masse. Or a kick in my Falstaffian ass:

A response, most severe, to my stern.”

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“Hey Jack,” says Ms. Nell, “Shall we stroll

Where the lawn-tennisers tennis and the lawn-bowlers bowl?

And I shall quote Tennyson. And you, give your benison

To every benevolent soul.”

The angels understand the doom that threatens every duck,

Because the seraphim divine the heavies’ plan to chuck

The fowl inside a burlap bag. It once contained the grain

Envenomed with a poison to destroy the quacking bane

Of everyone who slips on crap that slithered from a duck:

Folks fall to Earth, like meteors the playful angels chuck.

“My dear,” says the lech, “We shall walk

Where the talkative talkers all talk.

I shall pick you a rose, a delight for your nose,

And the thorns will depart from the stalk.”

Jack’s never seen a purple cow. Or seen the purple grain

Of amaranth in fields where the souls have left the bane

Of suffering when dying: Purpled fields where the duck

That flies above Elysium remembers “dearest chuck”:

The nickname Mackers gave his wife, when poisoning the grain

The ducks, and then the people, ate: His statecraft, hatecraft bane.

“Hey Jack,” says Ms. Nell, “In a bower

That casts dappled shade on each flower,

We shall hide from my guy. So Pistol won’t try

To make that brief time your last hour.”

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“My dear,” says the lech, “Let us ramble

Where the deer and the antelope amble.

Let us mosey along where the lyre bird’s song

Is deceiving the hare in the bramble.”

And every fan who slips on gifts the ducks have left behind

Will then descend and fall, like hams the critics have maligned.

A kindly soul fed bane to ducks. The benefactor slipped

Off Avon-bank to Avon’s rank, and miring, bed. And nipped

By teeth of sun-bright sunfish that have dined on his behind,

He kept his nose above the piddling stream the hack maligned.

“Hey Jack,” says Ms. Nell, “Let us roam

Where the bears and the bison foam

At the mouth when they consider the actions of very well-bankrolled political factions

To the right of the poisonous gnome.”

Jack’s never seen a purple cow. The purple cows have slipped

On bull manure. In politics, the frost of truth has nipped

The sunny warmth of promises as plush as Jack’s behind

And profligate as royal pomp the plebes and proles maligned.

The state has stumbled, brass have bumbled, and the bovines slipped,

Because of bull manure that nourished asters frost has nipped.

“My dear,” says the lech, “The gnome is a banker. The Swiss

Decided that Zurich won’t miss

A gnome every honest soul dreads. So they chopped off his underhanded heads;

And now bask in the consequent bliss.”

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“Hey Jack,” says Ms. Nell, “Let us wander

Where the roses and irises squander

Their beauty because no one’s there to pause

By the comeliness just beyond yonder.”

The benefactor still survived, til snapping turtles came.

The snappers crunched his skeleton, encouraged by acclaim

Of villains from the Scottish play. This gleeful merriment

Continued til the coin of life had been consumed and spent,

Like Falstaff’s sperm. And every time the horny jester came,

Another consummation earned him feminine acclaim.

“My dear,” says the lech, “No one knows

The fragrance of a wild and prodigal rose.

All of its scent is expended and spent

Where the deer and antelope doze.”

Jack’s never seen a purple cow. The bovine merriment

Of purple cows is playful as the zephyr that has spent

Its breath to tickle Falstaff; when the naked lecher came

With Doll in summer meadows, to the birds’ and bulls’ acclaim.

La vache qui rit is laughing, in her bovine merriment

About the seed and chicken feed the pay-poor lecher’s spent.

“Hey Jack,” says Ms. Nell, “When they sleep

Where the majestic glaciers creep

Backwards, those critters dream about titters

Deserved by politicians down deep.”

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“My dear,” says the lech, “All those pols

Are spending eternity in the halls

Of molten marble and melting granite. Where those damned politicians say, ‘Damn it!

Stone walls do a prison make. And Satan built these walls.’”

The angels hadn’t time to help the benefactor out

Of Avon. For, they’d been enjoined to gather round about

The throne of God, and sing a clutch of Falstaff’s sinful songs

To entertain the Boss the mocking pen of Shakespeare wrongs.

And so the snapping turtles put the vital light quite out,

Then dined upon the carcass they had gathered round about.

“Hey Jack,” says Ms. Nell, “Those pols denied global warming.

So the imps and the implettes are swarming

Around them with coals that heat those damned souls

In formations the nails are forming.”

Jack’s never seen a purple cow. He sometimes sings the songs

About the purple cow that sees and hears and smells the wrongs

Committed by the naked apes, when cows and pigs are out

Of life because their gushing blood is eddying about

The buckets. They contain the blood of cows that heard the songs

About the slaughter in the house that hides the facts and wrongs.

“My dear,” says the lech. “Those pols are screwed

And nailed to the floor of the pitiless pit I have viewed

In visions of hottest Hades. No mauve bovine gentlemen or ladies

Need fear because of statements they’ve mooed.”

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“Hey Jack,” says Ms. Nell, “The statements purple cattle moo

About global warming are honest and true.

They know that this planet, like those pols, will say, ‘Damn it!’

If the Earth is as hot as a pot of pol stew.”

God wanted to enjoy a bit of jollity and fun

Before Jehovah’s task of juggling atoms has begun.

(S)He keeps the sun from growing til it swallows planet Earth:

The origin of Falstaff’s ready wit and Earthy mirth.

Though Jack is not amused when Bernard Shaw is making fun

Of Avon’s brackish current, where the water has begun.

“My dear,” says the lech, “Satan stews

The pols he has caught in a pot he has got. And the news

From Hades is grim: Those cauldrons all brim

With pols who are in Satan’s Who’s Who’s.’

Jack’s never seen a purple cow. He sometimes sees the Earth

Empurpled by a regal host: The monarchy, and mirth,

Of seraphim who rule the skies, enjoying flighty fun

And wisecracks Falstaff’s wit has cracked. The mighty host’s begun,

But never finishes, the task of keeping mother Earth

From quaking, in her laughter, when she contemplates Jack’s mirth.

“Hey Jack,” says Ms. Nell, “Satan keeps bushels of books

With the names of the Who’s who, forever, will lose when the crooks

Of the imps’ croziers hook those pols. Then horrible Hell’s hottest halls

Will welcome the pols the chief chef, Satan, cooks.”

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“My dear,” says the lech, “Let us go

To see Will Shakespeare’s latest show.

We will catch and sell a duck, from the Avon’s mud and muck,

To pay for theatre tickets that grow.”

Begun to smell around the butts of ducks so close to death:

The ducks at dinners when the dish produces pungent breath

Of carnivores. They eat the fowl with garlic and a lot

Of mustard to disguise the taste of reeking reeds that rot

In Avon water, smelling of decay, demise, and death

When breezes die on muggy days that hold their cooling breath.

“Hey Jack,” says Ms. Nell, “The tickets that grow ever more

Expensive, to pass through a theatre door

That’s wrapped in the hide of a cow that has died

Where blood slickens the sickening slaughterhouse floor.”

Jack’s never seen a purple cow. He sometimes sees a lot

Of purple people patronizing pallid plays where rot

Is served. As in the restaurants where, sickened unto death,

Fans clutch for straws of mercy as they breath their final breath.

The Devil opens wide the door. And burns the sorry lot

Of tickets, that those fans can’t use, to see the hackneyed rot.

“My dear,” says the lech, “We won’t really pass through a door,

But a doorway, to see blood and bloodshed, and gore

That stains the stage. I’ve read on page,

About physics, why people don’t pass through the floor.”

 24

“Hey Jack,” says Ms. Nell, “Let us go

To see Shakespeare’s midsummer Midsummer show.

We will ride, on a swan, over stream-side and lawn,

To the theatre where Oberon’s bow.”

Some summer days, the humid air is sultry in the town

That shimmers in the atmosphere the plays of Shakespeare crown.

Upon its hill, the theatre seems to dance and wave and weave

In summer air surrounding scenes about midsummer’s eve.

Then balmy breezes cool the woods located near the town

That schools of thought, the Parthenon, and Grecian theatre crown.

“My dear,” says the lech, “The bow of Oberon

Has sent flying, high over the lawn,

An arrow that lands where a maple tree stands,

And the leaf is as red as the dawn.”

Jack’s never seen a purple cow. The purple daisies weave

And wave in breezes on midsummer’s tardy purple eve

When daylight stays around to light the forest and the town:

God doesn’t trust the king of sprites the scenes of Shakespeare crown.

In Stratford’s starry skies, the seven silver sisters weave

A plot about the fairy queen adorning summer’s eve.

“Hey Jack,” says Ms. Nell, “On the flag

As proud as a crest-crowning stag,

The leaf is as red as the crimson that fled

When autumn and winter played tag.”

 25

“My dear,” says the lech, “If I ride on a swan,

That bird will be squashed on the lawn.

That dead swan will be flat as bear or cougar scat

That I, when portaging, have stepped on.”

And Stratford’s crowned with dramas that The Globe and Mail roasts

Until the critic’s censured by enraged angelic hosts.

The seraphim and cherubim have dunked him in the drink,

Extinguishing the lurid thoughts that paper critics think.

The seraphim are sovereign, in their singing, dazzling hosts

More glorious than any scene a carping critic roasts.

“Hey Jack,” says Ms. Nell, “Then you ought

To go jump in the lake: Don’t be caught

By a bear or wildcat, displeased that the scat

Is flat as a play Shakespeare’s wrought.”

Jack’s never seen a purple cow. He never sees her drink

The nectar of the gods inducing purple cows to think

The thoughts that led to steel stakes where Torquemada roasts

The beef and brains of bovines: They’ve invoked angelic hosts

To witness that the bread they eat and hallowed wine they drink

Is not the sacrificial Christ, as pious pray’ers think.

“My dear,” says the lech, “You must mean

Two Gents. In Verona, each scene

Is flat as a tabby cat beneath a steamroller that

Ran over a tom or a quean.”

 26

“Hey Jack,” says Ms. Nell, “Let us ride

On a cow with an amethyst hide.

I shall search for such cattle. If I find one, then that’ll

Dispose of the sneers of the snide.”

The critics bake and broil lines Will Shakespeare wrote for plays

That hammy acting damages; it can’t conceal ways

The language sings, as trumpets sound a silver round. Like songs

Expressing notes so very right they pardon singers’ wrongs.

The angels sing of critics who have barbequed Will’s plays:

The lunch-for-turtles critics who regret their wicked ways.

“My dear,” says the lech, “The sneering snide scoff.

But a lilac bovine would prove they must quaff

Bitter dregs of defeat. For then they would meet

A cow of the royal purple; a bovine aristo and toff.”

Jack’s never seen a purple cow. And never heard the songs

About the perpetration of empurpled prose that wrongs

The arts of writing script and scripts. When dappling shadow plays

Upon the red and azure inks that mix in many ways

To give their shades of meaning to the scurvy scenes and songs

About Will Shakespeare’s scumbags and their heinous crimes and wrongs.

“Hey Jack,” says Ms. Nell, “The scoffers say

‘There ain’t no such animal.’ But they

Will silence their song when we prove they are wrong;

And the cow’s eating amethyst hay.”

 27

“My dear,” says the lech, “Let us go

Where the Arctic hares romp on the snow.

We will pack the pack ice. And then, sell it for twice

The price of the ice from a floe.”

The angels carry baskets filled with meals for the guys

Who gaze in awe, and hunger, at repasts in azure skies.

The angels set the baskets down, beside a glassy stream

Reflecting choice enchantments of a starveling’s famished dream.

And seraphim are mirrored in the Avon. Like the guys

Who worship at the fountainhead in Heaven’s happy skies.

“Hey Jack,” says Ms. Nell, “We will sell

The ice to the Devil in Hell.

Then his home will be cold as The Winter’s Tale told

By Perdita to Florizel.”

Jack’s never seen a purple cow. And never sees the stream

Of time that flows through purple dusks; when wights and wenches dream

Of starry sable skies that linger over girls and guys.

The purple cow is dreaming of the silver moon in skies

Reflected in the woodland lakes and in a lucid stream:

The skies above the forest sprites in summer’s midnight dream.

“My dear,” says the lech, “With a first name

Like Florizel, that poor guy must be game

For a different appellation. And to send to Satan’s conflagration

A designation that gained the disdain of the Thane’s Dame.”

 28

“Hey Jack,” says Ms. Nell, “What in Hell

Does the Devil do when he wants to seem fell,

Ferocious, and fierce? Does he shout shouts that pierce

The ears of the imps as they smell?”

The characters are grateful. So, they stammer out their thanks

For all the goods and goodies that the angels, in their ranks

Of row on row of hosts and hosts, have brought to feed the guys.

The heavies open baskets: There is nothing like the pies

Andronicus has baked, when he neglected to give thanks

For human meat he garnered from his foe’s depleted ranks.

“My dear,” says the lech, “The imps smell

The sulphurous fumes filling Hell

With a stench like the eggs the degenerate dregs

Of the audience hurl as I tell.”

Jack’s never seen a purple cow. He often sees the guys

And girls who perish painfully from Macker’s purple pies

Empurpled by the mould for which the Devil offers thanks

To gods and fates. They decimate the howling, yelling ranks

Of fans who roar for corn-fed blood of scheming girls and guys

In Shakespeare’s plays. Those fans are baked in Satan’s Hell-hot pies.

“Hey Jack,” says Ms. Nell, “When you tell

Lies in your play: When you slay

The truth, telling fictions with graphic depictions

Of your heroic deeds in the fray.”

 29

“My dear,” says the lech, “Then I have the Devil to pay.

The audience paid for the fray:

To see the heads roll when the knights pay the toll

To travel where seraphim play.”

Unlike the pies Andronicus has baked as pastry chef,

No meat, no fowl, no fish, no flesh is present. For, the Ref

Has ruled, in God’s commanding way, no pain or death befalls

To give the guys the food they eat in nature’s banquet halls.

And Henry Fifth decides that he will be a pastry chef,

Instead of killing foreign knights “on orders from the Ref”.

“Hey Jack,” says Ms. Nell, “The fans also paid

To see Sir John Falstaff get laid.

But you never luck in. Though Jack’s hoping to sin,

No madam or maiden is made.”

Jack’s never seen a purple cow. A lethal fate befalls

When Richard Third has seized the crown: Ensconced in marble halls

And purple robes, he dines on grub prepared by Stratford’s chef.

Such meals send empurpled fans to realms where Hades’ ref

Enforces rules. Beelzebub’s the boss, when Hell befalls:

When, fallen to sulphuric depths, one dwells in hellish halls.

“My dear,” says the lech, “I am chaste

As the Great Torontonian Waste.

The existence of the GTW is a fact that must trouble you:

Let’s ignore Toronto the Good, Nell Quickly, posthaste.”

 30

“Hey Jack,” says Ms. Nell, “Let us dine

Where the air enlivens, like wine

In metaphorical bottles. And let’s enjoy Aristotle’s

Greek cuisine; and the Athenian sun that mottles.”

Upon the circling island that the Avon circles round,

And near the banks where noisy ducks and silent swans abound,

The heavies dine as silver plates reflect the golden sun.

And everyone’s content to be a vegetarian.

And everyone’s surrounded by the verdant island’s round

Of banks that hold the wealth with which the summer days abound.

“My dear,” says the lech, “The sun dapples and mottles,

Through trellised vines, those ancient Greek bottles

That contain the muses of thought. Four philosophers caught

The darting trout of truths: Socrates’, Plato’s, Daffy Duck’s, and Aristotle’s.”

Jack’s never seen a purple cow. He’s often seen the sun.

The sun he’s seen is shining on a vegetarian

Who never eats a purple cow. He picnics on the round

And peaceful island in the Avon. Circling swans abound

Around the rounding island, in the warmth of summer sun

That consecrates the picnic of the vegetarian.

“Hey Jack,” says Ms. Nell, “Daffy Duck

Had the ontological luck

To fathom epistemological realities, and to sail metaphysical seas,

And to know where duck-yummies grow in the Avon-muck.”

 31

“My dear,” says the lech, “I am thin

As an angular angel-fish fin.

I eat like a sparrow. I’m just bone and marrow;

And my skin has so little to keep in.”

And every local, passing by, who saw the angels shine,

And sees the mediaeval garb of villains as they dine,

Is quite blasé. Because such sights occur in Stratford town

Routinely as the golden sun or silver moon goes down.

The sun descends. The moon ascends. And constellations shine

Upon the star-bespeckled robes of heavies as they dine.

“Hey Jack,” says Ms. Nell, “You are round

As the Avon-island where you’re often found

Eating donuts and pies, and greasy freedom-fries

That will free you to lie underground.”

Jack’s never seen a purple cow. He often sees the town

Where purple people eaters stroll. They’re ambling, rambling down

The Stratford streets. The purple people preyers take a shine

To Falstaff. There’s so much of Jack to munch upon: To dine

Upon the glutton. King and Preston; coppers of the town;

Enforce the laws that keep the rate of people-preying down.

“My dear,” says the lech, “You are wrong.

I’m as light as Popeye the Sailor’s blithe song.

I’m as thin as a rail. And I dine upon kale,

And spinach to make my arms strong.”

 32

“Hey Jack,” says Ms. Nell, “That’s not true.

You’re rotund as an old-fashioned gnu

That dines upon grass til his girth and his mass

Cast vast shade on the veldt, and his beldt is stretched too.”

The silver apples of the moon are shining on the robes

Of angels, as they carry critics low above the globes:

The globe that spins, indifferent to the lives that it sustains;

The Globe that stands, indifferent to the deep-felt joys and pains

Of characters. They’re strutting in their rich, though borrowed, robes;

For everyone’s a tenant on this comeliest of globes.

“My dear,” says the lech, “I am narrow

As time’s so swiftly flying arrow.

The flight of that arrow will measure how many years I can treasure

Each springtime, each lilac, each yarrow.”

Jack’s never seen a purple cow. The bruises Jack sustains

When fleeing from a husband are empurpled as the pains;

Right royal pains; when troubles strike beneath the purple robes

Of kings who seize the scepter and the golden globe. The Globe’s

A fine and public place: The rounding theatre that sustains

The monarchs, and their words that sing of pleasures and of pains.

“Hey Jack,” says Ms. Nell, “Like the cow that jumped over the moon,

Your blithe spirit will ascend rather soon.

I’m sure that in Heaven your humour will leaven

The bread-of-life in the country where it’s always afternoon.”

 33

“My dear,” says the lech, “Let us ponder

The undiscovered country that’s yon and yet yonder.

Though nothing is awry or amiss in that land of Heavenly bliss,

Canada is the country of which I am fonder.”

Those characters have come-to-be upon the Stratford stage.

Will Shakespeare is their father, for his words upon the page

Are formed of drops of seeding ink that do one-half the job:

Creating characters in plays where every slob or snob

Disdains the snobs, if he’s a slob upon the jutting stage,

Or scorns the slobs, if he’s a snob on Shakespeare’s lyric page.

“Hey Jack,” says Ms. Nell, “In that Heavenly land

The hourglasses are empty: No sand.

And the clocks never chime. ‘Cause that land has no time.

And no piano sonatas are allegro on the grand.”

Jack’s never seen a purple cow. The purple does the job,

Distinguishing that bovine from the common herd. The snob

Looks down on other cows that chew their cud upon the stage:

Will Shakespeare’s pasture, where the playwright writes a mordant page

About the vulgar masses; common herds that do the job

Of making milk. The cream’s reserved for Stratford’s bovine snob.

“My dear,” says the lech, “‘Allegro’

Moves quickly through time. So no

Sonata or song can run, Ms. Quickly, along

Where time’s arrow never leaves the bow.”

 34

“Hey Jack,” says Ms. Nell, “When will you

Be departing for life in the blue?

The seraphs and heavens are azure where the Good Shepard’s flock bleats out ‘baa’ sure

As your news about gnus wasn’t new.”

Disdains the snobs, if he’s a slob who acts that lowly role.

Or scorns the slobs, if he’s a snob who’s in the snob patrol:

They lock up slobs, to keep those mobs of riffraff in their place.

For social class keeps back the mass of riff and raff from grace

Descending on the lofty brows of those who act the role

Of scholar or aristocrat in Shakespeare’s snob patrol.

“My dear,” says the lech, “I don’t know

When the time-keeper, Saint Peter, will blow

On his loud silver whistle: When the thorn and the thistle

Of life will give way to the lilies saints sow.”

Jack’s never seen a purple cow. A purple cloud’s in place

To colour Avon-water with reflective Lenten grace:

The amethyst that hides the mud. The rippling wavelets roll

Where Preston Nakamura and his gabby dog patrol

To see if purple people-eaters lurk around the place

Where careless fans are eaten with paprika, salt, and grace.

“Hey Jack,” says Ms. Nell, “When you go

Where the lilies of Paradise grow,

Ignore their self-satisfied beauty. Though Heaven’s lilies are snooty,

The plebeian petunias are more fun to know.”

 35

“My dear,” says the lech, “Is there life

Before death? While we brace for marital strife

And the old age we’ll face, will Jehovah’s great grace

Grant us a future if I promise to make Doll my wife?”

And grace descends on lordly brows of those who’ve made the grade

Up which the slobs cannot ascend. Because the track they’ve laid

Was smeared by snobs with ample daubs of oily, slippery goo.

It keeps the slobs from climbing up to where the snobs pursue

Pursuits, and practice practices of those who’ve made the grade

That’s far too steep for characters in scenes where Jack gets laid.

“Hey Jack,” says Ms. Nell, “I’ll give good odds

That you and your favourite employee of bawds

Will still have ample years ‘in this vale of tears’

To enjoy this small planet God lauds.”

Jack’s never seen a purple cow. He often sees the goo

And mud that slows the coppers down when trying to pursue

The purple people-eaters in the Avon. Turtles grade

Those dramas in the water. In the theatre, heavies laid

Their best-made plans. And yet, a metaphoric guck-and-goo

Has trapped them in the nightmares that the steeds of Death pursue.

“My dear,” says the lech, “Let us hope

That Jehovah will give us a rope

To tie down some years that bring minimal tears.

And the rest? May (S)He give grace to cope.”

 36

“Hey Jack,” says Ms. Nell, “Let’s not attend

A play that Will Shakespeare should mend:

If Two Gents were a kettle, its rust-eaten metal

Would leak like a sieve I will lend.”

The snobs pursue what slobs don’t do. Kept under, and undone,

By this, the slobs eat gobs of burgers, brooding on the fun

The snobs enjoy in comedies. Where Shakespeare gives the scenes

With lutes and flutes and courtly dance to snobs and kings and queens.

Though every person’s done to death; by life, and time, undone;

Let’s hope they’ve gone, before they’re done, through spring-time fling-time fun.

“My dear,” says the lech, “You will lend

Me a sieve so the water my living will send

Under the stream-bridging span will be clear as the snow-melt brooks that ran

Down King Mountain to where rivers wend.”

Jack’s never seen a purple cow. He often sees the scenes:

The scenes he sees that feature purple robes, of kings and queens,

Done up with hooks and buttons that are ardently undone

When horny, merry monarchs have some racy, spicy fun.

A purple robe can cover many crimes. But randy scenes

Uncover naughty bits of Shakespeare’s lusty kings and queens.

“Hey Jack,” says Ms. Nell, “The rivers proceed on their way;

Like time that some day will silently slay

Jack and Nell, wending through living that’s ending

When dusky death brings dark’s depths to the day.”

 37

Of the twelve books Michael Shea has written:

How many pages are in each book?

And how many pages are on this website?

The Allegro Quartet

The Judgement of Solomon -- 403 pages -- Forty pages

Eden Lost -- 338 pages -- Thirty-three pages

The Silver Apples of the Moon -- 334 pages -- Thirty-three pages

The Blue Star of Twilight -- 361 pages -- Thirty-six pages

The Adagio Quartet

The Sable Swans -- 366 pages – Thirty-seven pages

The Willows of the Brook -- 350 pages – Thirty-five pages

The Field of the Lilies -- 364 pages – Thirty-six pages

The Noontide Sun -- 326 pages – Thirty-two pages

The Andante Quartet

The Pine and Cedar -- 299 pages – Thirty pages

This Rough Magic -- 377 pages – Thirty-seven pages

The Mountain Nymph -- 394 pages – Thirty-eight pages

The Seeds of Time -- 333 pages – Thirty-four pages

The excerpts can be read, free of any fee, on the author’s website:

MichaelShea12books.com

Thank you for reading excerpts from the books.

If you wish to read the books in their entirety, each is, or will be, available.

They are published by ( ).

 38

The twelve books are dedicated to my daughter, Marie-Laure,

and to my brothers, Philip and Gerald.

I completed the books in the following years:

The Judgement of Solomon - 2010

Eden Lost - 2011

The Silver Apples of the Moon - 2012

The Blue Star of Twilight - 2012

The Sable Swans - 2013

The Willows of the Brook - 2013

The Field of the Lilies - 2014

The Noontide Sun - 2015

The Pine and Cedar - 2015

This Rough Magic - 2016

The Mountain Nymph - 2016

The Seeds of Time - 2017

Thank you for reading this selection from The Blue Star of Twilight.

To read the remaining pages of The Blue Star of Twilight, please buy the book.

From my office, looking through the window at my apple tree and the cedars and maples,

best wishes from Michael Shea.

39