Shakespeare - Marin Sorescu

Shakespeare created the world in seven days.

The first day he made the sky,
The mountains and the chasms of the soul.
The second day, he made the rivers,
The seas, the oceans
And the other sentiments -
And he gave them to Hamlet, to Julius Caesar,
To Anthony, Cleopatra, and Ophelia,
For them and their descendants, to master
For ever and ever.
The third day, he summoned all the people
And he has taught them the tests:
The test of happiness, of love, of despair,
The test of jealousy, of glory and so on,
Until all tests were well-taught.

Then, some fellows arrived late.
The Creator patted their heads with pity,
And he told them that was nothing left
For them to do but to become
Literary critics
To contest his work.
He then reserved the fourth and fifth day for laughter.
He let the clowns go
To make tumbles,
So that the kings, the emperors
And other unhappy people have fun.
The sixth day, he dealt with some managerial issues:
He set up a storm
And taught King Lear
How to wear a crown of straw.
There was some debris from the creation of the world
And from it he created Richard III.
The seventh day, he wondered if he had anything else to do.
The theaters managers plastered the world with posters.
And Shakespeare thought that after so much hard work
He too deserves to see a show.
But because he was too tired
He went to die for a while.

Added by: marin.mihalache

Translator: Marin Mihalache
Language: English

see more poems written by: Marin Sorescu