LOVE LIES BLEEDING

Hi there

Some time ago I entered a local competition to write a love letter.  One of the conditions of entry was that it had to be previously unpublished, so I didn't put it on this blog at the time, although some people did see it .  I don't think it's really what the organisers were looking for and it duly didn't win any prizes but I've now tidied it up a bit to produce a second version which is below.  Hope you like it - and as usual please feel free to forward it to others if you do.

LOVE LIES BLEEDING

The Palace

Thursday

Dear Cleopatra

Well, well. All come to this? One of those effete young men of yours simpered across this afternoon to say you just topped yourself. Bit of a bombshell, that. Look, I know I got a bit angry and I'm really, really sorry, really I am. I've had a lot on lately and I probably did go a bit over the top. It's a bugger, isn't it, because you and me has been the greatest love affair of my life. I was full of plans for us to get married and go and live in the country somewhere, nice little cottage, roses round the door. I'd have been a real model husband, only nipping out now and then for the odd spot of conquering or parading captured enemies in chains.

But now.... but now....I can't face carrying on without you and couldn't do it if I tried, so – big Roman general and all that - I chose death with honour. Turns out I've not got as much honour as what I thought. Took a servant to show me how - refused a direct order to kill me and took his own life instead. Well that taught me a lesson so I manned up and fell on my own sword, except I couldn't make a proper job even of that, so here I am wounded and bloody and definitely on the way out but with a bit of time to kill first, if you see what I mean. Ow! Really shouldn't try to make myself laugh, it hurts too much.

Know who I blame for all this? Mr William High and Mighty Bloody Shakespeare, that's who I blame. Oh, he's got a bit of a way with words, of course he has, I was quite taken by being described as 'the triple pillar of the world', very neat that, specially seeing as one of the other two is that useless twerp Lepidus, but then he has to go and spoil it by adding that bit about me turning into a 'strumpet's fool.' That's you he's talking about, he'd better not come anywhere near me, otherwise I myself might very well his quietus make with a bare bodkin, to borrow one of his better ones from - Hamlet, was it?

Calls himself a poet but he comes up with some funny bloody lines, perhaps poets do. 'My heart was to thy rudder tied by th'strings' I'm supposed to say at one point, odd bloody image if ever I heard one, sometimes I reckon I'd be better off writing my own love poetry without him interfering all the bloody time. Here, what about this one then, specially for you?

Roses are red, violets are blue

Who loves ya baby?

I'm first in the queue!

Strange what goes through your head at a time like this, but I reckon us poets are dead lucky that violets really are blue, well, most are, because the rhyme would be much harder if they was, say, yellow. You'd have

Roses are red, violets are yellow

I'll whisper my love,

Or maybe I'll bellow.

And thank the gods that they're not orange! Did you know that there's no rhyme in the English language for 'orange?' Not great, but the best I could come up with is

Roses are red, violets are orange

I'll cheer our love loudly,

Not whimper or whinge.

Back in your box, Shakespeare! Although why we're doing it in English in the first place beats me, being a Roman general and all. Mind, Rosae albae sunt doesn't quite have the same ring about it, amirite?

Hang about, hang about, I've just had a thought. He's done this before, hasn't he? Idle sod can't be bothered to think up a new plot every time, but it's young master Romeo what does himself in when he hears Juliet's dead, isn't it? But she's not is she? Wakes up just as he dies beside her, realises what's happened, stabs herself with his knife, bodies everywhere, curtain and a great rustling of Kleenex 'cos there's not a dry eye in the house. If he thinks I'm shuffling off this mortal coil with 'Thus with a kiss I die' like Romeo got stuck with he's got another think coming. Mind, perhaps he's not much good with last words. Macbeth got 'Lay on MacDuff,' whatever that means, didn't he, and even Hamlet only got 'the rest is silence,' well of course it bloody would be if he's dead. I'll try to get him to put 'Now my spirit is going, I can do no more.' I rather fancy that especially if you then chime in with 'Noblest of men, woo't die?'

Know what I wish? I wish we had been written by that Christopher Marlowe all along rather than the sainted William Shakespeare; we wouldn't have had none of this messing about. Marlowe knew a thing or two about sticking knives into bodies, and he wouldn't never have left me hanging on like this for the sake of a big sentimental finish in Act 5, or Act V as I should call it. Ow! Done it again. Even the Earl of Oxford, whoever he was, would have made a better job, all loose ends neatly tied up, a lot more gratuitous sex along the way with any luck, everybody happy, Bob's your uncle. Think I must be starting to go delirious. I've no bloody idea who Bob is or why he's your uncle.

Anyway, what I'll do, as a kind of final romantic gesture, I'll get some of the lads to carry me round to your place, if that's where you are, and lift me up so I can bleed all over you and very possibly die in your arms. The box office manager will like that even if nobody else does. But I'm starting to get visions now, delirium again I should think, because once I've gone I reckon you're going to get some wrong'un or other turning up with asps in a basket, and you'll take an asp and put it on one of those lovely breasts of yours and let it poison you. Wouldn't be surprised if you're getting a bit soft in the head by then as well and start talking to it. I'll see if I can get him to give you 'Dost thou not see my baby at my breast that sucks the nurse asleep?' - being a bit of a poet I'm quite proud of that, wonder if he'll do it?

I'm rambling like a delirious old fool. But straight up, there's no getting away from it, the end is nigh. The lads have come for me. One last kiss, one last embrace, one last tear, alright loads of last tears, one last declaration of undying love. Try to remember 'Noblest of men, woo't die?' won't you, it'll go down big, I promise.

I'll leave this letter here so someone finds it soon. Bit of a bugger it should end like this, but I now see I love you more than I thought possible, more, as it turns out, than I love life itself. Cleopatra, here I come!

Ave atque vale and all that and I'll love you till the day I die. Well, you know what I mean.

Antony

ANAGRAM CORNER

We haven't had one of these for ages, but Antony and Cleopatra presented quite a challenge........

ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA

AT ONE...... CAP'N AND TAYLOR