Ages & Sins 3: Starting Pistol

This is the third of seven sonnets based on Shakespeare’s “Seven Ages of Man”: “the lover”.

Shakespeare has his lover “sighing like furnace”; a forlorn figure writing “a woeful ballad”. I’ve created a more positive young lover – someone whose “racing heart” is set off by the “Starting Pistol” of a “track” race. This young “lover’s love” explodes into action; their goal is to reach the finish line “tape” that must be crossed before they can access their beloved’s “treasured face”.

Starting Pistol
The lover’s love is set off by the gun
Of the official standing at the start
Holding a pistol fiery as the sun
Whose single shot begins the racing heart
That sets jet aircraft speeding through the veins
With oxygen for muscles to consume
That turn the lover’s legs to bullet trains
So round the track, like Bolt, young love can zoom
Towards the tape that marks the finish line –
The single-minded focus of its race
The final fence of Aphrodite’s shrine
The gateway to their idol’s treasured face.
	Young love, once triggered, knows not how to walk
	It might look like a dove; but it’s a hawk.