Star Crossed And All That Stuff Poem by Paul Brookes

all the Romeos and Juliets
upon the stage dying.

oh yes, there they are, thinking of blue murder,
wanting life to be a cabaret, sombreshades of Sally Bowles;
finding out too late there are no free lunches, just bare facts
or barefaced liars hamming it, up dressed to nines in stilettos

benefactors like princes on white chargers,
rarely, if ever, come, so the Juliets swoon
and the Romeos all turn out to beGay;
trollingbars for midnight hook ups
and the dice rolls for eventualities.

lo what light through yonder bedroom breaks
all there is sex, drugs and cliches.
the drive to make mini mes and yous
to populate other stages.

all the romantics, they say, were locked up in asylums.
every wretch that was ever born languishes in
towers for eternity, slowly mouldering, for no good deed
goes unpunished Torquemada taught us that.

in the end all the Romeos and Juliets
lie mute upon the stage and the play,
that which is the thing,
like life, always ends up in death.
that's the tragedy and it comesto us all.