INTRO
I know what thou art thinking: why did I
These sonnets write in twenty seventeen?
Do I imagine there are people keen
To give my poor pentameter a try?
And, furthermore, who do I hope will buy
A book that doth the noble form demean
With subject matter frivolous, obscene
And quite impossible to dignify?
In truth, I needed it to occupy
My febrile brain, for what a year it’s been.
I thought I could, with verse iambic, pry
Some sense from nonsense, and our modern scene
Depict and mock, while using ‘thee’ and ‘thy’
In pages fit to rest by thy latrine.
KIM KARDASHIAN
1.
When I beheld upon my laptop screen
The best and brightest of our earthly stars
As cover girl of Paper magazine,
With gloves and pearls and glist’ning, global arse,
Then did my heart with foreign feelings flare,
For little had I known erotic passion
Ere I had glimpsed thy shining derriere
And learned thy gilded name, O Kim Kardashian!
But thereon grieved my soul, for I did think
Of how thy form empixelled might remain,
That, IRL, my lips might never drink
A glass of thy butt-balancèd champagne.
I need thee, Kim; oh prithee do not let
My heart be broken like the internet!
2.
Thou Aphrodite Kallipygos! Thou
Proud-buttocked cynosure of ev’ry eye!
Thou shining mistress of the here and now,
Thou queen Armenian, thou mystery!
Thy grace exceedeth Khloe’s far, and Kourtney
Rejoiceth not to glimpse thy Twitter count;
Some fifty million followers support me
When I do argue thou art paramount.
Thou cardinal Kardashian! My love!
How doth thy broadcasts gladden mine antenna,
Thou TV star, whom I admire above
Kris, Kendall, Kylie, even Caitlyn Jenner!
Thou art a goddess, and thy tape with Ray J
Doth get me off, just as thy dad did OJ.
3.
Wherefore do fools thy great renown dismiss
And jeer that thou art famed for being famed?
They claim thy wealth unyoked to talent is,
That of thy fortune thou should’st be ashamed.
Know they not of thy vaunted app, Kimoji,
Or thy bestselling book, of selfies made?
Think they the giddy sums that E! bestows thee
Reflect not well thy powers to persuade?
Why claim they thou art symptom of an age
Of frippery, an Instagramming whore?
Art thou not kindred of old Betty Paige,
Monroe and Grable and Zsa Zsa Gabor?
I will not grant to watch thee is obnoxious:
’Tis so to mock thee, or upbraid thy watchers.
4.
O Kanye, can ye hear this lover’s moan?