Tag Archives: Shakespeare

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?

EDWARD

EDWARD

if you did write those plays
how wrenching for you

to have instantly disowned them
with the final word.on the page

and what words!
what words!

  our best algorithms prove
them yours statistically
        one by one
                 the pieces are found

and
   begin to fit

together
        and suddenly, quietly
we have
our mirror

plays lost to the man
         man lost to the plays

SYSTEM

SYSTEM

and now I find
and now I find

gymnast and
syntagm
     are so intimate

anagrams
of each other

spooky action
     at linguistic distance

but what do I know
of such unique connection

all my lovers
        ghostly, some
actual ghosts

the dust of all
    that was desire questioning
my stridence

gives the idea
     puts me on notice

that it is
                   all simulation

and when you undress before me
in name only

getting the sweet syntax
     up and running

see what you are up to here
Mr Shakespeare or
Earl
    of Oxford

whatever you wish to go by
privately call yourself

spilling from Juliet’s lips
the philosopical truth of
                    a true rose

even if
a thousand years of cynicism
scepticism stands in its way

when you
        go inexplicable mystery
and wrap yourself around me

making us (yes, channeling you
Professor Noam Chomsky)
branches, leaves
       upon the same tree

graft taking
      we can grow now together

happy
     (who would not be) though
this all
     feels pre-planned: our
perfect simulation

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

THIS PLAY

THIS PLAY

I came to the play
               in suffering

Hamlet this night
sure to be my guy
having pencilled him in

but no sooner ghost-talking
guards appeared on the parapet

then down in the audience
war broke out
        between those who
swear by
William of Stratford, and
              those who proclaim
a new king
by name of de Vere

sad that either way we
facing some
         serious anonymity

which is hard for any writer
     but perhaps par for
      the greatness course

I am told these poor folks
put their whole
        souls into it

and next time you scan
not a single bone remains

spiritual, symbolical, material
not a shred
     of connecting evidence

it’s like the stuff
  wrote itself or
             ethereal hand
              blessed the page

no chance here to debate
learning
        versus innate craft, the role
pain played in it

of trace of the causality that
produced this irreplaceable shape

         and there we are
watching, dreaming

          as it
all goes down without us

pale reflection of being
         perhaps not even

bridge
      best we can be, bridge
broken or
magnificent

Hamlet
dead again
      
                 as always

In state of acute longing some suffering,
      I came this play.

GOODFELLOW

GOODFELLOW

that juice
that misguides

messing with
the truth that is youth
in its
absolute
love

slurring word sounds to
fit that
          shifty, narcotic
sex-dream picture

Oh
    I do not hear
    what I hear

do not see
what I see

my brute body far more
beast that it has ever been
your
        fairy bower so

exquisitely
kindly

your words dripping with
the wonder of your
mouth, lips
parts I might
list
    if I had
time to

Oh the love you have given me
too much for lifetime, enough
for one-night stand (more
might drown me)

that juice, my Queen,
so translated, brought
                      base to gold
great
      alchemy

beyond the perfume trick
of simple chemistry

we must have bathed in
must have flowed, rolled
over our bodies
like a river

        at which sight
Puck
puckered up

so
deeply impressed

DARK

DARK

Oh, what a burden you wear
my Prince of shadow

hard not to think of you
head-to-toe in black

the state
  is a lie

your castle
is death

your family
a prison

and behind this sweet tragedy
what writer has
contrived
        to conceal what

might be
    close to this bone

this sepulcher of a stage
littered
    with all we have
come to hate and love

and thus History arriving
(as it tends to) with
an army

      new flags, iconography,
presence of dawn

this the
    poet knows, indeed
seems steeped in, riddled
with it

something here
so consummately dark.