The Hamlet Project

If a ghost descended and said
“O my America. Watch out, watch out!
There is a great recession ahead!
Heed this warning. Buy not subprime mortgages!
Invest not in Lehman Brothers or Bear Sterns; They are not
Long for this world, soon to join me in the afterlife.
Heed your debt, America! Check your greed!
Keep your eyes on those banks and also on those car companies.”
Is there a chance in hell
Anyone would have believed him?
The ghosts with premonitions of the future
Must have wrung their hands and prepared
To watch as we sank ourselves
Deep into the mire of our Imperial making.
Or else they rejoiced.
If Horatio had begged for knowledge
Would any ghost have thought to give it?
Foreknowledge is useless unless
We believe in foreknowledge.
Even if a person could see into the future
Could report on the fate that awaits us,
We’d first have to believe him.
Every future caster is a Cassandra
And every single one of them knows it.