Christopher James
The Elizabethan Stag
In cellars or an ale-house darker than deaf John’s
Ben Jonson, The Alchemist
We wore codpieces, long-coats of bearskin
and spoke only in iambic pentameter.
Each of us carried a large gold pineapple in our breeches
and filled our boots with beer.
We climbed the high towers and called out to the citizens.
We pointed our thumbs at one another.
As best man, Mercutio played the 12-foot trumpet
and handed out the shirts.
We rode our horses through the streets
and tattooed on our forearms lines from The Alchemist.
At The Crooked Surgeon we lost one of our number
and took up with an Irish girl whose eyes
were like spiders and sapphires; she outdrank the best of us.
We rode by rickshaw to The Globe,
where we let the sun beat on our throats
drank by the Thames and sang with the groundlings.
When we tied Romeo in the baiting pit,
he was saved only by the colour of his skin.
Ben Jonson, The Alchemist
We wore codpieces, long-coats of bearskin
and spoke only in iambic pentameter.
Each of us carried a large gold pineapple in our breeches
and filled our boots with beer.
We climbed the high towers and called out to the citizens.
We pointed our thumbs at one another.
As best man, Mercutio played the 12-foot trumpet
and handed out the shirts.
We rode our horses through the streets
and tattooed on our forearms lines from The Alchemist.
At The Crooked Surgeon we lost one of our number
and took up with an Irish girl whose eyes
were like spiders and sapphires; she outdrank the best of us.
We rode by rickshaw to The Globe,
where we let the sun beat on our throats
drank by the Thames and sang with the groundlings.
When we tied Romeo in the baiting pit,
he was saved only by the colour of his skin.
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