Tag Archives: Hamlet

SPARROW’S FALL

SPARROW’S FALL

we were sitting
in the back of the plane.
safest place if
you wish to think
about providence,
tempt fate

and Providence the city
we to be shortly
disembarking in

you with
your nose for gnosis
me with the chemical
acumen of
forked, flicking tongue

banqueting
upon the very air

but perhaps
due to  time
shift of quite
radical nature

when we touched down
a delegation of machines
appeared
     assembled to
converse
with us

embraced us as
long lost souls did
conduct us through
their world

baffled us with
the intensity of
their bombardment
with technical information
scientific explanations

walking, talking us through
every nut
        and bolt in
terms of
form and function
how it
     all did work like a dream

yes, every
quantum interface
they guided us through it

we saw, heard. felt
how seamlessly every facet
did dovetail
deep together

reminding me of
the meaning, true
                    poetic meaning

of the Prince’s
    immortal, much celebrated,
marvelously resonant phrase

PLAY’S THE THING

PLAY’S THE THING

the play’s the thing
unless
     forgetting throne, crown,
father poisoned in
an orchard

I decide
to step back, tell
my tale of woe, hereafter
sleep

the peaceful sleep of one
not wracked with guilt

unforeseen consequence
collateral damage

take two succulent heroes
(a loving pair)
get them lost in
incestuous forest

without grid reference, compass,
guide

and so
plenty fairy tale time
to languish
in the bracken
strangle conscience

beg
to be thrown into the brambles
when smeared with tar

in this
our era, ’tis plain
how easy it be
to get smeared with tar
(a whole
industry created
to make it stick)

or
  as if lifted up the tree
canopy high above,
in hydrogen zeppelin
or on
cushions of helium

think
ladder, cloud, spiral
staircase, deus-
ex-machina
elevator

escalator there
only to
convert into metaphor

lost babes
no more
but Castor and
Polluxed
fully
      soaring, rising

high as poetry
complete
as blue
moon
lucid
as song

tale we might
recite together
the metre faultless, not
a rhyme wrong

INTERREGNUM

INTERREGNUM

Ah! In that long
tiresome, turbulent
history
of puppets
and Kings

a strange interregnum took shape,
or thus I am persuaded,
a two minute hiatus
in the Danish line
before
it collapsed,
went
full-on Norwegian

Ah, yes younger Hamlet with
his thirty-second reign,
keeping the crown warm
for the more
cut-throat
Fortinbras

sublime moment in which
all were touched
by the great
poetry spoken

though stands to reason
pretty little else in that reign
masterfully achieved.

WEREN’T WE?

WEREN’T WE?

weren’t we
supposed to hold
up the mirror
to human nature

not let it fall
splinter, shatter

crash and burn, break
into a billion tiny
diamond-bright pieces

jagged shards, blood
soaked, blood
painted, bloody

never to be fixed
never
       to be returned
never reclaimed
never restored

all those bits of light
dancing in the Sun grotesquely

hold
up the mirror
to human nature

who the fuck, nowhere
near his right mind
came up
     with that idea

(go not pass go
        leave the planet
sail steadfast, venture into the cosmos
               cross
the galaxy

not, never
in a trillion lifetimes

nothing out there
     to mirror what
we
   might well be)

weren’t we?

GREY

GREY

I fell into a deep
Hamlet-like sleep

I couldn’t rember dreaming anything
         unless it was
of constantly correcting
himself
to ensure we were
in absolute agreement

when I waxed eloquent
talking complete nonsense
about the number, nature
and colour of the planets

and whether we were
real historucal figures,
characters in a play
or figments
in a dream

red planet
yellow planet
blue planet
green planet
orange planet

a whole rainbow spectrum
of coloured planets
.
and yet
life

    is prison grey.

IN THEORY

IN THEORY

words
words
words

put horizontally
put vertically

are what he tells the President
he is reading

and what is the difference
between a prince and
a pauper and
a prince and a
president
at the end of the day?

you
ask.me

Oh let me travel to
the end of my leash, reach
the end
of my tether

sojourn in Paris, lounge
on the left bank
become
     eternal student

many a brilliant idea imported
along with appertifs
and expressos

as I chart my way
developing the system
to conquer
        limitation, figure out
what is
    different

a system so open and

yet subtle

it can pre-
          determine every nuance

eveb as it crosses the page idly
as any other text

word word word
         text

        (nothing we believe ever
outside a text)

HERE


HERE

it was not a great play

the Danish constabulary
arresting Hamlet’s
uncle
    in the final
scene

bringing him to justice
full force of the law

warm
    inside we felt
but harrowing catharsis
was what we
paid for

nothing quite like the blood
soaked stage
       that marks the escalation
to biblical proportions

full geometric progression
that marks the fulfiment
of desired revenge

likewise
      love restored
Othello and Desdemona
working on jealousy and
self image
    in partners’ therapy

or Dionysus giving Pentheus
a book to read
      about his divinity help
this stupid
  fascistic king

better understand
         the god of ecstasy’s ultimate
terrible kindness,
beautiful power
     (Nietzsche’s The Birth
of Tragedy
could do this well)

but
    none of these cut it
none make the cut
          regarding what
we need.

the hours spent in the theatre
must alter time, change
our perception

bring us
      to the threshold of
apocalypse at the
                  insane spectacle

such as

          is in flood across

the airwaves
.
as is presented here