Shaw and Berry
…a power play.
The green of love
has turned to red
on chlorophyll
this berry fed.
The white of love
was built of pulp
to liquefy
to sip then gulp.
The yellow love
moved into seed…
a failed supply
of want and need.
The berry’s lust
rejected straw
but longed to suck
George Bernard Shaw.
NOTE: This poem was written in honor of the short play, “Why She Would Not: A Little Comedy,” by George Bernard Shaw (1950). It is the last play written by this author before he died at the age of 94, and it is about a wealthy woman rescued from robbers by a tramp who is rewarded with a job that makes him wealthy. Over time, he builds the woman a new home and expects to marry her. She refuses his offer of marriage. One version of the probably unfinished play was written with the roles reversed.
