Yelling for Stella

In the literary panoply of
Romeo cooing italianate endearments
to Juliet
Cyrano lipsynching gallic sucre
to Roxanne
Stanley yelling animal desire
to Stella
Tony scatting jazz up the fire escape
to Maria
or even Lloyd's boom box blast
to Dianne
it's a lame effort;

Some pie-eyed drunk schmuck
is hollering 'Lesley! ...Lesley!' up
at the blank banks of balconys
smeared across the concrete face
of the ugly highrise next door
and Lesley ain't saying bupkus
(wisely in my opinion)
because:
(a)he sounds slurringly pathetic, and;
(b)it's four thirty o'clock in the a.m.
and lights are starting to crawl randomly
up and down the face of the building
in stylized imitation of what happens
when a big rock hits a big anthill
and if Lesley steps out to answer now
her name is mud with the condo board.

Which leads me to wonder why,
in fictional scenes
from William Shakespeare
to Tennessee Williams
nobody seemed to notice
but the tender intended
and neighbours stayed undisturbed
and oblivious to all the sweet woo
being bellowed beneath their noses?

I, on the other hand
am awake too early in the a. m.
listening to our anonymous hero
and thinking that if he wails
just one more time,
I'll call the cops
to book his sorry blotto ass
and am wondering why this plot twist
never occurred to Shakespeare...