Author: erainbowd

But that I am forbid To tell the secrets of my prison house, I could a tale unfold whose lightest word Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood, Make thy two eyes like stars start from their spheres, Thy knotted and combinéd locks to part, And each particular hair to stand on end Like quills upon the fretful porpentine.

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They never seem to have notes on the stuff I’m really curious about.
This edition goes ahead and explains that a porcupine, when it gets anxious,
Lets forth its quills. Even if I couldn’t work out that a porpentine was a porcupine,
I still don’t know that I’d need this note.

What I want to understand is Hamlet’s hair.
It’s knotted? His locks are combinéd?
Does Hamlet have dreds?
Or is his father concerned about his son’s
Messy hair? Did young Hamlet, as a boy, never
Comb his hair? Did it get into tangles?
Does the Prince of Denmark have bird’s nests
In his hair? Patches of disorder?
This image makes it sound like his
Hair is a briar patch of a mess
That will untangle and separate
Into a porcupine’s back as soon
As his father speaks a word about
His experience of hell.
I want to understand this knotted business.
It feels like it could open up
A box of curiosities about Hamlet
And his father or just how Hamlet
Does his hair (or doesn’t do his hair)
When he gets up in the morning.

I am thy father’s spirit, Doomed for a certain term to walk the night And for the day confined to fast in fires, Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature Are burnt and purged away.

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What are these foul crimes of which Hamlet Sr. speaks?
One assumes his days of nature are his life (nice way to put it, Ghost King!)
so we don’t really have a ballpark timeframe for these foul crimes.
Foul crimes sound a lot more serious than just your run of the mill sins.
One assumes he has taken the Lord’s name in vain and other such pecadillos
But what does he see as his foul crimes?
He did some smiting of the sledded pollack on the ice – that’s possibly something –
And he is a king. Probably you don’t get to be or stay one of those without a little
Foulness. But what? What?
It opens the door for me to wonder what Hamlet’s father was like in life.
Hamlet says a lot of nice things about him – how loving he was to Hamlet’s mom,
Like various shining gods
But he has died before those things get said
and the bad stuff loses weight
(Or perhaps it is just burned away in the fires.)

What?

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Did you just say revenge?
I’m sorry, my ear hasn’t quite acclimated to Ghost Speak just yet
And it sounded like you said “revenge” –
Like, I was bound to revenge
But that couldn’t be right,
Could it?
It was stonehenge you said, right?
That’s where the ghosts go home to sleep?
Stonehenge – not revenge
Or Kenge (and Carboys) from the Dicken’s novel, right?
Or – pendge – like, what the cool kids are calling pendulums these days, right?
You didn’t say “revenge.”

So art thou to revenge when thou shalt hear.

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Ghostie drops a little bomb right here.
If this line were the trailer to the movie,
It would reveal a key plot point
Before anyone could see it.
It seems like a sort of accidental spoiler,
Like he didn’t mean to reveal this bit to Hamlet at first.
He has a speech from here. It might even be a prepared speech. There is a certain
Orderliness to it, a stentorian preparedness, a rhetorical announcement
To what he is about to say.
But what he says here
Feels like it just slips out –
Like a mouse out of a hole
That scurries quickly back in
But that once it’s out,
You can never quite forget.

I am bound to hear.

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I suppose he’s saying he is obligated to hear what his father’s spirit has to say
Because of his filial bonds.
Then, too, there’s the sense of being BOUND to hear something
Simply unable to be missed because it is audible
And happening where he is – the way I’m bound
To hear those guys in the jerseys talking about the game
No matter how much I’d wish to avoid it.
Or perhaps there is a kind of binding
That inevitably knits speaker and hearer
Into a listening connection
As springy as a rubber band
Or a knitted scarf.
I also picture a child bounding across a yard
Toward his father, like a puppy.
There is a bounding toward this story
And a bond
That is about to be sealed.

Speak.

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How many times has the word “speak” been spoken so far in this play?
Speak, speak, speak.
I say it enough and it starts to sound funny.
Speak, speak, speak, speak, speak, speak.
Do we say “speak” to each other?
We tell our dogs to speak when we train them.
We use speak to talk about which languages we can commincate in.
Or when we want someone to be louder.
It seems like it’s more associated with formality –
Like, when “I need to speak to you about your job performance.”
Or “We’ve brought in this expert in environmental controls to speak with us.”
The prime usage of speak seems to hang out in our tech – in the speakers
That plug in our ipods, or computers – which is funny, because if there’s one thing a pair of stereo speakers can’t do, it’s speak.

Pity me not, but lend thy serious hearing To what I shall unfold.

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I could choose which of my hearings to listen with.
I have a selection available –
This one is my serious hearing
But my comedy hearing does come in handy very often.
When times are tough, the tragic hearing
Can work me up to a real grade A melancholy.
I’ve got half-assed hearing, metaphoric hearing
(this one will generate the most poems,) dramatic hearing,
bureaucratic hearing, rock n roll hearing, family hearing, child hearing,
teacher hearing, spirit hearing, organizational hearing, strategical hearing,
mystery hearing and abstract hearing. The surrealist hearing will usually make me laugh in unexpected places. Musical hearing can help me manage car alarms and shouts in time. The textual hearing helps with meaning. There’s an abundance really.
Flip through the catalogue. Choose one. Surprise us both.

Alas, poor ghost!

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It’s bad enough BEING a ghost
Neither alive, nor truly dead,
Entirely liminal
Floating over the boundaries
But to have such a busy schedule , too –
Of stalking and having one’s sins
Burned away in tortuous flames at appointed times!
That pushes the bad news of ghostliness over the edge.
I’d assume it was enough punishment to remain in the world you’d left behind,
Peering in at your loved ones,
Watching all you accomplished drift away in the tide of your no longer being there
Or even just to have died.
To have lost the weight of your body
The beat of your heart
The rise and fall of your breath
The feeling of a breeze whispering over your skin
And the smell of green leaves growing –
That would be loss enough.

My hour is almost come, When I to sulphorous and tormenting flames Must render up myself.

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6 am: Time to flambé!
The torture of the afterlife is very regimented.
You get some time to haunt your old battlements –
Do some stalking, some sorrowful faces, some almost speaking
And then back on the clock for fiery torment
When you’ve done your hours in the furnace,
You can punch out for the night – go back to haunting if you like.
This is not free form torture
No, sir – every minute is scheduled –
So you feel each second, note each hour passing
(Or not passing) like a terrible job that will never end.
Poor ghosts punching the Inferno Time Clock.

I will.

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Mark me. I will.
Is almost like call and response.
It’s almost ritual sounding as in
Peace be with you and Also with you or
Forever and ever amen.
It also feels like a rest – like a pause
After the flurry of getting to this moment
And before the chaos that the story about to be told will wreak.
It’s almost like a simple two person prayer.
In classrooms, I’ve learned numerous call and response techniques
But my favorite has always been Ago/Amay
Which translates as “Are you listening?” and “Yes I am”
Which, I suppose we could just as easily say
But Ago and Amay feel like a step into another space
A gesture toward something new
Like a pause
Like a prayer.