be it stories or poems
he spoke like no other
and he could recite sonnets
one after another

Shakespeare and Byron
he would quote like a dream
as though they were apart
of his own bloodstream

his dark eyes were made
full of shadows and stars
to read tragedies and plays
then teach them at seminars

be it Tolstoy or Dickens
the work of Brontë or Austen
he intimately knew them
like a corpse knows it's coffin

but none ever noticed
that while with quotes, he was king
the quoter hardly ever
wrote or said his own thing