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, a 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.
Where there is a will, there is a way.