639 books
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1,669 voters
Tudor England
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Anne Hathaway's Garden by Stewart Stafford
In Stratford, lies a garden's tended hair,
Two lovebirds, Avon swans, nested there.
Anne kept counsel as Shakespeare's bride,
United home and clan over distance wide.
Pestilence, flood and war roared with fright,
This English idyll thrived in the pastoral light,
Rose, rosemary pruned with nurturing care,
Floral Tudor fireworks, exploding fragrant air.
The Bard, swansong past, returned to her,
Wooed Anne with words, the heartbeat spur,
To walk and rem
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The White Falcon by Stewart Stafford
Trampled pomegranate underfoot,
Fervent ascent of anatine steps,
To the alabaster falcon's chamber,
Viperine slither as a king's retinue.
Roman breakage for a concubine,
Stillbirths piled on a spiral staircase,
Skewered tongues spitting smears,
Spurious sparks fanned to an inferno.
Denounced in the toxic public mind,
Cast into a wolf pit by kangaroo court,
Blood money to the Gallic executioner,
Her headless ghost in a centuries' limbo.
© Stewart Stafford,
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