I’m in my father’s living room on the couch that is also my bed when I stay with him.
I have a catalogue and in it are lots of toys.
There’s a doll in there that I have fallen in love with. She’s got
Real looking hair and she’s beautiful. I want to have her.
My father’s girlfriend is with me.
She’s sitting on the navy blue coverlet, across from the TV.
I show her the picture and I ask her about what’s written there. I hear the price.
I say, “Okay! I have fifty!” (Or however much it was. I don’t remember the numbers.)
Karen finds me amusing. She says, “You have fifty dollars?”
I say, “Sure. See?” And I show her my collection of coins. I’m sure I have fifty of them.
She tells me, no, no – this is paper money you need.
I assure her that this will be no problem either as I have plenty of paper money.
I do not yet know the difference between play money and the money that becomes
Much more complicated as I get older – The money that I’ll never have enough of –
Because right there, right then, I have everything
And she’s so silly, this woman, not to believe I can buy this thing.
Author: erainbowd
Marry, I will teach you.
This is how you change a tire.
This is how you write a poem.
You draw a horse. Like this.
Never raise your voice.
No you can’t go to the bathroom.
No you can’t get water.
Are you listening to me?
How are you going to
Learn if you don’t obey?
I do not know, my lord, what I should think.
On the radio today I heard a story about a corporate executive who became an artist. She told the story of a life of doing what she was supposed to – of doing what was expected, of doing the right job, in the right place, with the right husband. A lifetime of being told what to think had left her lost. When she discovered a form in which there was no right way, in which there was nothing but difference, in which her own thinking was the thing to explore, she almost had a breakdown.
An astonishing number of people want to be told what to think. It seems easier, I suppose. I suppose it is easier. It is easier to follow the lines laid out in front of you than to choose which direction to go. It is easier to color in a coloring book than to decide what to draw but the consequences of a lifetime of coloring in what has been set out for you, are probably dire. Perhaps if Ophelia weren’t concerned about what she should think, she wouldn’t be dead by the end of the play.
Do you believe his tenders, as you call them?
I hate that I can’t stop thinking about chicken tenders
When I consider this line.
I don’t even know which terrible fast food restaurant
Came up with this name for their chicken strips
But it’s stuck and no matter how I try to push this image away,
Fried, breaded, little strips of chicken
Come dancing back into my brain.
I see Polonius in a little fast food paper hat,
Holding up these deep fried bits of “chicken”
And saying, into the camera, this line –
In the style of a celebrity endorsement advertisement.
And Ophelia, in a booth next to him
Smiles and takes a bite
Vowing “No! She can’t believe it! These are the best tenders she’s ever had!” Then an announcer’s voice tells us the amazing deal and gives us the company tag line
As Polonius and Ophelia take a bite of their tenders simultaneously and grin at each other and nod. No one can believe these tenders!
You speak like a green girl, Unsifted in such perilous circumstance.
A little wisp of grass,
She is almost translucent in her green-ness.
She has shot right out of the dark of the earth
Pointing toward the sun.
She will flower soon. Her little shoots are
preparing to push forth little white blossoms.
She’s feeling the shadow of something over her.
Is it the sun passing behind a cloud?
A fox searching for a snack?
One of them passed through here a while back and almost flattened her little stalk
Just as it was beginning, but that was a long time ago, she can barely remember.
This feels like a bigger shadow somehow
And the ground is vibrating a little more as it
Spreads across the garden.
She looks up – and wonders if this is one of those
Mythical humans her friends have told her about
If maybe those are feet
If maybe those are shoes
Headed right in her direction.
Pooh!
Polonius says Pooh! Does anyone else in all of Shakespeare use the word “Pooh?”
No. It is his and his alone.
What would he say it means?
Is it like Pshaw? Or “bullshit!” or “Phew?”
Polonius says Pooh, though.
Pooh pooh pooh
Maybe he’s poo-poo-ing.
Does poo-poo-ing something come from Polonius?
Pooh!
Affection?
Yes, affection.
Yes, tenders
Yes, tenders of affection
Yes, tenderness
Yes, affectionateness
Yes, kisses
Yes, caresses
Yes, reassuring pats
Yes, playful punches
Yes, tender hair tugs
Yes, curious hands
Yes, warm places
Yes, holding
Yes, hugging
Yes, gazing
Yes, sitting side by side
Yes, holding hands
Yes, passing notes
Yes, secrets
Yes, private jokes
Yes, laughter
Yes, serious stopping
Yes, yes, yes.
He hath, my lord, of late made many tenders Of his affection to me.
A single daisy placed in my hair
A note, with just my name and a heart
A gesture, a movement of a strand of my hair behind my hair behind my ear
With which he managed to brush both my cheek
And the slope of my ear and this tender place behind it
This look he gave me as he made a place for me beside him on the bench
A pear that he pulled from the tree while we walked through the garden
A quality of listening while I told him what I thought was a stupid story
The pressure of his hand on my back as we walked in to dinner
The program that he folded into a hat and placed upon my head
A little song he sang to me with my name in it
Time, collapsed into nothing so that there’s nothing to do but look at one another and intertwine our fingers.
Give me up the truth.
Truth has its hands tied with a thick rope.
It’s been locked in the basement, fed with bread and water.
The kidnappers have been holding out for a serious ransom
But they’ve discovered that there’s not as much call for their captive as they thought.
When they made their announcement to the media they expected huge public outcry.
They expected to be found out quickly, vans outside the doors, cameras and guns
and microphones. They expected a stand-off. They have the weapons ready.
But no one came.
They made another statement and sent it out in a marked up brown envelope.
This one didn’t even get a response.
The truth has been patient. It can wait.
It eats its bread and the occasional granola bar and it sits patiently on its chair.
They find it unnerving. They’re afraid to talk to it.
They’ve been quarreling a lot between them, threatening violence.
Having truth in the basement has started to undo them.
When the man with the badge comes to the door
And asks them to give up the truth,
They let it go without a fight.
They don’t ask for their ransom. They don’t beg for a helicopter.
They just cut its bonds and open the door.
What is between you?
“There is space there.”
Someone asked him what he meant by SPACE and he gestured
Between their two shoulders
Between their two chests.
With some people, that space becomes charged. There bubbles a little
Charge in the atmosphere. Sometimes even a person outside the circuit
Can feel it or see it
As if there were little waves of light
Or little floating motes
A shift in texture.
Between lovers, the space is elastic, isn’t it?
Sometimes charged with affection and love
Other times with resentment or fear
And sometimes a mix of all of it.
Who could actually sum up what is between you? There is space.
Understanding more
Becomes very much more complex.
The Hamlet Project 