WORDS... Shakespeare Be My Brother...

Language provides an echo - it is not the original - words are representations, symbols, utterances, that the inner spirit longs to be known - to self - to others and to the ultimate SELF. As a poet, language echoes my heart's lament, my soul's joy and my spirit's quest to soar, echoes holding to praise and gratitude, a sounding sense of purpose.  Rose Marie Raccioppi 

Shakespeare be my brother this very night
As words free and in frolic take flight
Words of anguish, fear and pain
Words of illusion and the inane
Words to claim my longings and desire
Words to breathe these thoughts of fire
For words within the mind conceived
Create the world for us perceived
Recorded in prose, poetry and rhyme
To give purpose to life's gift of time
Words to serve intent and pleasure
Held in journals as one's life treasure
Words of moments present, moments past
And within a recorded history cast
Of all the words I in quest to heed
Silent utterances of TRUTH and sacred creed.

Rose Marie Raccioppi
Poet Laureate
Orangetown, New York

Image: Google.

Shakespeare Be My Brother

Shakespeare be my brother this very night 

As words free and in frolic take flight 

Words of anguish, fear and pain 

Words of illusion and the inane

Words to claim my longings and desire

Words to breathe these thoughts of fire 

For words within the mind conceived 

Create the world for us perceived 

Recorded in prose, poetry and rhyme 

To give purpose to life's gift of time 

Words to serve intent and pleasure 

Held in journals as one's life treasure 

Words of moments present, moments past 

And within a recorded history cast 

Of all the words I in quest to heed 

Silent utterances of TRUTH and sacred creed. 

Rose Marie Raccioppi 

  "It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves." 

William Shakespeare William Shakespeare -

 Invitation Card, Wood engraving on brown paper, 1850, Ford Madox Brown, 1821-1893.

And in reflection: "Know Thyself" Temple of Apollo at Delphi

The more I read Shakespeare, the more I realize that in a poet's heart is ever the search for understanding, beauty and purpose. If we are open to explore the poet's pondering of heart, we will hear the questing echoes of soul.

"All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages." 

William Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act II, Scene 7, ...published, 1623.

Imagine the engagement of heart, soul, spirit in words of praise, in words of reflection, in words of sacred creed. Imagine "know thyself" a pursuit of love, of faith, of spirit, of GOD. I envision and currently launching, "The APOGEE Players" and The APOGEE Theater of Success." All conflicts, complexities, frustrations, the rants of suppression, anger, guilt, repression, have been recorded by Shakespeare and can be referenced for all needs of the "psyche." Imagine instead of psychotropic medication provide we Shakespearean contemplation!

Passions Mine

Seduction and passion's plea
Longing and rapture in reverie
Fervor, spirit's luminous flame
Ablaze the soul calls its claim
Rueful reflection sounds its cry
Muse be summoned to answer why
Enfold yourself in the spark of creation
Now and eternal is all revelation
Brush stroke of color upon surfaces vast
Sculpture set by the artist to cast
Carving of stone with the hand divine
Drawing holding grace in shadow and line
The sounding heart and reaching hand
Music, music, echoes of God's command
Flaming heart of love and boundless fire
Know I of grace and incessant desire
Art, music, words in prose, words in rhyme
Playful musings of these passions mine.

Rose Marie Raccioppi


Baldassare Peruzzi, 1481-1537, a painter of frescoes in the Cappella San Giovanni in the Duomo of Siena, Muses Dancing with Apollo