The Hamlet Project

Faces all over the room are getting pinker
Redder
Deepening the shade with each bray of the trumpets.
The room is descending into a place where everyone
Is warmer and louder and less upright.
Several courtiers have gone horizontal.
The king has two men on either side of him
Maybe to hand him his Rhenish or maybe just
To keep him in his kingly posture.
Every time he brings his cup to his lips
The crowd goes wild – a refined room of nobles
Becoming a 20th century fraternity house
(Complete with the streaker midway through the night.)
Someone has hung his under garments on the nose
Of the wild boar stuffed on the wall.
The servants had to stop a duke from pissing in the corner several times
over the course of the night.
The savvy observer wonders if the king is actually drinking Rhenish.
He remains cool and calm
Putting on the show of drinking and loud macho camaraderie
But he seems vividly in control.
No article of his kingly costume has gone askew.