There are forms and ideas I think I have done with –
The art stuffed into a drawer, locked in the back of the closet, under a pile of clothes,
In a can in the garage, stuffed behind the bookshelf
And I’m there, too, hiding, or resting
Or simply trying to pretend I am small
And insignificant.
But Art finds its way out first and with its dusty arm, beckons for me to follow it.
Unfolding my legs
Shaking out my wings
Clearing the dust from my nostrils, I
Bow my head and drive forward.
Author: erainbowd
And for my soul, what can it do that, Being a thing immortal as itself?
There are a lot of things that can be done to a soul.
Just because it cannot die
Doesn’t make it invulnerable.
It can shrink
It can shrivel
It can ache.
My friend took a job on a cruise ship
Which pays him a living wage
With which he can support his son
But, he says, his soul dies a little every day.
If it were to die and die like that
In little bits, in pieces
It may be that it could all but disappear
Or go into hiding and a person could
Go to his grave
With the sense that he’s been abandoned by his immortal self,
That this death happened some time ago
While he was busy trying to survive.
I’d like to believe that the soul
Is like one of those little grow-in-water creatures.
It comes in a little capsule and expands
When you immerse it in water
But if you let it dry out, it shrinks again
Into a dull, brittle object, unidentifable in its shape
And one could think all has been lost
But if you put it in enough water, it will expand again.
I do not set my life at a pin’s fee.
Let’s see. I have this little bit of money;
I could buy a pin
Or I could buy Hamlet’s life.
The pin, I could use, you know, to hold things together –
Hamlet’s life, well,
He might as well keep it –
I have no use for it.
I’ve got my own stitched up life here,
Pieced together with thread and tape,
Tied up with string and the occassional pin.
Why, what should be the fear?
Rats. Rodents of almost any size
(Chipmunks and squirrels, the possible exception) Inside or out. Big or small.
Snakes. Garden, desert or tropical.
Drowning.
Losing my hearing.
Losing a loved one.
Getting hit by a car.
Ridicule.
Embarrassment.
Humilitaion.
Ignominy.
Homelessness.
Headstands.
Do not, my lord.
How out of line is it for a subject to instruct a prince?
Is it?
The command of “Do not”
Is softened by “My lord.”
What if Horatio has stepped out of bounds here?
What if it’s astonishing to hear an order like this?
What if it shakes you out of the hypnotic state of ghost watching?
Then I will follow it.
When it washes me over in waves of adulation
Then, its easy to follow.
When it stetches my imagination up, up and out
When it leaves my muscles aching from so much compassioned use
When the challenges are the creative fun kind
When it gives back and back even more than it takes
When it’s right on the beam
Right on the fire
Right in the center of the delight
Then it’s easy to follow.
When it runs so fast I can’t keep up and my feet are bleeding
From the stones and glass in the road
When the wind is biting
The climate inhospitable
The company hostile
The obstacles too big
The gaps too wide
The storm too violent –
When it feels like a thousand hands are holding me back
Whispering “Stay. Relax. Be comfortable.”
When there’s no hope, no promise, no assurance –
I’ll still follow it then.
It will not speak.
Staring at the ghost of someone I know
Having begged it to speak to me,
Having watched it make signs,
I would wonder if it could speak.
I would wonder if death has taken the voice
If not the body, or the appearance of the body,
The outline, the hologram, the shadow of the body.
I can see that it still moves
That it is expressive and life-like
But it doesn’t breathe anymore, does it?
Can it speak with no breath?
Death must mean the loss of something if it’s not the body, it might be the voice.
No, by no means.
This is one of those phrases that just slides past in conversation.
Its identity as a phrase – as a complete idea – almost masking the words in it.
Its rhythm saying as much as its content.
It’s only now that I’m looking at the words on the page, pulled out from all context,
That I recognize what “means” is meaning.
Hamlet shouldn’t follow his father in any way.
He should not follow him on his feet
He should not follow him on his seat
He should not follow on a boat
He shouldn’t follow with a goat
He shouldn’t follow on a floe
He should not, should not, should not go.
But do not go with it.
Wait, wait. I know I’ve just been telling you
All about this action, this wave
That would seem to sweep you from this place.
It was me who told you what it meant
Where you were meant to go.
I showed you the path, gave you the compass
But I didn’t mean for you to take it.
Look with what courteous action It waves you to a more removéd ground.
Is this ghost particularly polite in his actions?
Particularly kind and solicitous? When we think of courtesy now,
We think of courtesies done, little extras, perhaps, in service.
In looking at the word, I wonder about its relationships to the court –
Is courteousness a quality of being a courtier?
I don’t think of a royal court as a place
Of great kindesses and graces
Although certainly it is full of appearances of those things;
Courtesy being a show, in some sense.
What then is this courteous action the ghost is performing?
Is it somehow refined? Somehow official?
And how is it doing that while simultaneously
Waving its son to a place farther away?
Does he have a place in mind for this meeting?
Has the ghost been imagining how this conversation would go
Since he rose from the dead?
I picture Hamlet Sr., the ghost, talking to himself:
“I’ll appear up there on the battlements until they bring Jr. Then,
I”ll take him to that garden my son of a bitch brother killed me in
And I’ll sit him down and give him the goods.”
Maybe he practices his speech while stalking the parapets.
Particularly that list, list, O, list part.
The Hamlet Project 