like

Sometimes I like to sift through my folders and remind myself of my more prolific poetic days. I just came across one particular example of adolescent obnoxiousness in the form of ‘Like’. I wrote it as a blithe joke one day at university, but it managed to find its way into a poetry journal where it was met with acclaim, rather ironically. Here it is:

 Like

LEPIDUS: What manner o’ thing is your crocodile?
MARK ANTONY: It is shaped, sir, like itself; and it is as broad as it hath breadth: it is just so high as it is, and moves with its own organs: it lives by that which nourisheth it; and the elements once out of it, it transmigrates.
LEPIDUS: What colour is it of?
MARK ANTONY: Of its own colour too.

(Shakespeare – Antony & Cleopatra, Act II Scene VII)

We sat for a while
and watched the bubbles
rise in his beer like
bubbles rising in beer.
Then he drew a cross
in the ashtray like
someone drawing a crucifix
in ash.

The horses ran
across the plain, like
stallions running across
the plain, like mares.
 The wolves howled like
wolves howling, and the
sound of their cries was like
dogs crying to the moon,
and the stars, shining silver like
the stars.

We walked down the street like
two people walking down
the street; and, like people
saying goodbye, we said
goodbye.

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