Across the western plain silence travels one unsteady foot at a time staggering, twisting, forward until even the birds stop their noisy chatter to watch his coming. The thirsty earth’s dry tongue avoids the travel- weary feet, licks at the pathway puddles but is not satisfied. Silence comes. Still. ShakespeareContinue Reading

Every liar loves a laugh. Got to love the grief a handkerchief can bring. As sharp as a reef that handkerchief, my bully beef, a gold leaf for a sneak thief. What a relief at last to be lieutenant not that wax plant Cassio. About as brave as an eggplant.Continue Reading

Cast Jessica – Woman in her early twentiesShylock – Man in his late fifties to early sixties Scene: A room in Shylock’s house in 16th century Venice. Shylock sits at a table stacked with coins. He dresses in a long black robe that has yellow wheel patches on the shoulderContinue Reading

Morn at its bright birth Brought light’s sweet forthcoming hue rejecting the dark. Lynette Esposito has been published in Poetry Quarterly, Inwood Indiana, Walt Whitman Project, That Literary Review, North of Oxford, and others. She was married to Attilio Esposito.Continue Reading

From the author: After five years of teaching inside two all-male State Prisons in Northern Ohio, I know first-hand the power of Shakespeare and poetry. Like other art forms, poetry is universal in its appeal. Shakespeare remains a source of powerful lessons. Sure, I have an expensive doctorate, and ifContinue Reading

No sportsman relishing a victoryagainst his foe in an athletic meetwould dish up such a large trajectoryof reportage. Yet she did who’d repeatthat some infatuated patron sethis heart upon her gender-bending rolein Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.Forget her flaunting feminine controlas Romeo’s ill-fated paramour -that followed later when she donned aContinue Reading

Where hast thou been, sister? –Macbeth Since the night I was born I’ve I’ll known howling at the moon, mixed kiss yours with my own, crossed all times rhymes to together by the born beards your beard on our faces. Even when apart of hurt women’s tales never tell andContinue Reading

SHADOW: Why hast thou summoned me once more from peaceful slumber?WILLIAM: I, summon thee? Surely you jest for ne’er once have I summoned thee. Thou appeare’st from torpid shadows to test mine patience, a fickle figment of mine craft and nothing more.SHADOW: Nay I say, nay. ‘Tis thy craft thatContinue Reading

Peaseblossom, Cobweb, Mustardseedand Moth all will attend his need,Titania deems in Shakespeare’s “Dream”.Midsummer Night’s subversive schemepermits this Fairy to reversethe roles, so groom now bears the purse.And though it may appear a boonto be a ‘tended to’ buffoon,when sprites become your fancy’s guides,because the Queen of Fairies chidesthem to beContinue Reading