'Kiss Me Kate! (For Helen)

A Blazon sonnet? That’s the one an Elizabethan lover would turn his Elizabethan Miss into a list itemise her attributes (hidden or otherwise) & tick ‘em off bit by bit like a ledger clerk closing an account. From the colour of her eyes (always had to be blue) to the colour of her hair(always a blonde) from toes to tit in one hit. Sincere...not the least little bit! Yawn...stop me if you have heard this one! A fashion accessory for the gay young blade about town already fallen out of fashion before it had barely begun. “Oi...darling! ” “Yeah...you love! ” “Get your ruff on ...you’ve pulled! ” “I got 14 lines Petrarchan or Shakespearean ...know wot I mean? ! ” And a clever clearheaded Elizabethan lady would more than likely (but politely) tell ‘em “Oh...f***est thou off! ” ****** As Shakes puts it in Sonnet 106 Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty's best, Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow, Shakey also turned the blazon upside down in his famous 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 breast are dun; If hairs be wires, blackwires grow on her head. I have seen roses, damask'd red and white, But no such rose 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 far 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!