Who was William Shakespeare?
If you’re sure you know, then let me shake your world.
We know who Mark Twain was. Sam Clemens never kept that a secret.
Shakesspere, Shakysper, Shaxpeer, Schakespeire, Shackper, Shexpere, Shaxkspere and Shakspeyre.
All of these refer to our boy WIlly in the records of the time.
Even those that he misspelled when he signed them himself.
If you believe he was the glovemaker’s son, the theater owner, and the character actor
Who lived in a house in Blackfriars, London, and grew up in Stratford on Avon,
I will not disrespect you for your beliefs.
But that man, if he was the greatest of all poets, owned no library of his own,
Nor had such a thing available,
Nor ever left the area of Southern England where his entire life was lived,
Nor evidenced any sort of formal schooling beyond the earliest schooling.
Reading English and Latin at the King’s School of Stratford,
Though nothing beyond the age of fourteen.
These things we are mostly sure of;
Ben Jonson knew the real William Shakespeare.
The real William Shakespeare knew Christopher Marlowe,
And the patron of his poem books, the Earl of Southhampton,
Probably knew the real Bill too.
What we know about the real William Shakespeare comes from his work.
This was perhaps the most literate man who ever lived.
Thirty-seven plays, 154 Sonnets, and two narrative poems
Demonstrate he knew the Italian countryside,
He knew the ways of European courts, especially the English court.
He understood points of English law.
He accurately portrayed emotions like depression, hatred, love, and madness.
He knew the stories of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Othello the Moor, and King Lear and his daughters,
Though he did not invent any of those stories collected from other lands.
So, who was William Shakespeare really?
Francis Bacon? Kit Marlowe raised from the dead? Edward DeVere, the Earl of Oxford?
Or a combination of men coordinated by Sir Francis Bacon’s secret plan?
We will never know for certain. But we can ask him through his work.
The iambic pentameter of William Shakespeare still lives and reveals the mind of Shakespeare.
Though the true name behind the pen name will never be revealed.
Catch a Falling Star 
What Will One Day Be…
No king rules forever.
No man we know of lives eternally.
The planets and all the stars have their appointed ends.
Through science and observation and logical extrapolation….
We learn how small we really are in the vast universe around us.
And we see how impermanent everything is…
We are made from the dust of exploded stars. All elements beyond helium and hydrogen were formed in the flaming hearts of distant, ancient suns.
And when we die, we dissolve back into the elements from which a volatile and creative planet with a life-filled biosphere created us. And may decide to create us anew.
So, we will one day be mere dust again. Free to create something new.
We are but the words of the puzzle, making one crossword one day, and another anagram the next.
But the stories we make of those random, meaningless words…
Are the reason for existence.
And they are just as eternal and undying as anything else is.
And there-in lies the reason for hope.
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