Gulielmus Shakespeare was baptized on April 26, 1564; happy birthday, Shakespeare on April 23, 1564? Maybe.

It is interesting that Shakespeare’s exact birthday is unknown. He was baptized Gulielmus (the Latin name for William) Shakespeare on April 26, 1564. It was customary to baptize infants three days after they were born. Notice his death date is known (April 23, 1616). He wrote 154 sonnets and many famous plays. There are controversies over whether he actually wrote them all or served as a stage manager for plays written by a royal prince. I visited his birthplace, school, Anne Hathaway’s cottage, and tomb in Stratford-on-Avon when I attended Wroxton College in 1980.

Here are two of my Shakespeare sonnets and original parodies printed on the Saipan Tribune on April 23, 2018. Both parodies #116 and #130 are being spoken by twice-impeached former POTUS DJ Trump, who may soon be a candidate for U.S. President. The sonnets are quite relevant today, given the number of lawsuits POTUS 45 is facing.

Will Shakespeare: Sonnet #116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit pediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove

O no, it is an ever-fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.

Love’s not time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle’s compass come:

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks;

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

I Don’t Accept Marriage of Truth

(Joey Connolly’s Parody of Sonnet #116)

I don’t accept the marriage of truth in our minds

despite impediments I implement more bigly lies

which alter facts to fiction when any facts it finds

or twist the truth with repeated constant denies.

Oh yes it is one of my favorite strategic tricks

I tell lies about lies when truths are unshaken

let spokespersons ‘alternative facts’ enter the mix

the effects unknown but at face value will be taken.

Lies are a Trumpery tool trick using timed WH leaks

Mueller collects and gathers them in and then some

lies pile up on page after page by the days and weeks

then uncovered and exposed in a grand jury room.

If my lies detrimental to democracy are ever proved

then I never uttered one and Mt. Rushmore moved.

Will Shakespeare: Sonnet #130

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;

Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;

If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;

If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head;

I have seen roses damasked, red and white,

But no such roses see I in her cheeks,

And in some perfumes is there more delight

Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know

That music hath a more pleasing sound.

I grant I never saw a goddess go;

My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.

And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare

As any she belied with false compare.

My Tax Returns Will Never See

(Joey Connolly’s Parody of Sonnet #130)

My tax returns will never see the light of day

I dread not rubles or ties with Russian red

my money stashed on Wall St. every which way

its whereabouts known inside my dyed head.

I have rubles galore unmasked Russian red and white

haven’t seen any in my accounts for months and weeks

I’ll have to have an oligarch over for drinks tonight

give him some old Trump vodka and see if he leaks.

I’ll roll my rubles over in some small Swiss bourse

time to lay low stop contacting my Russian oligarchs

now time for a few rounds on my Mar A Lago course

greenback leisure for us mighty plutocratic monarchs.

Yes, my friend Vladimir Putin thinks my brain is ‘rare’

As usual only with himself does he care to compare.