Write like Shakespeare, hurriedly and without
regard for precedent. Throw metaphors
as if they were mud, on a hasty wheel.
Do not hoard your hours like precious baubles,
they are not meant to be kept on a shelf.
Pretend you are in debt, or make it so.
Desperation burns all ships that cling to port.
Your plot is what has happened. Add everything
that’s in the fancied shadows of your mind.
Turn a light on the world, then block it well.
Let actors be their naked selves in drag.
Your style is, the curtain’s up tomorrow.
Your motive, hunting bucks and earning crowns.
Integrity’s for rubes and circus clowns.
Shakespeare loved to write, and expended words
as murderous generals use bullets.
He trusted in his cause, and sovereign good,
then put his arms in service of the piece
commissioned by some faraway regal.
Two choices wait on every scribe inspired:
be not as good as wished, or be retired.