A man hungry for glory
Full of ambition and hot air
But starving.
He sharks up things to feed himself
Consuming whatever is before him
Indiscriminate and determined
Moving ever forward
Like a great white
Consuming.
And is it an accident that this insatiable shark
Has his hand up the skirt of a nation?
Author: erainbowd
Our last king, Whose image even but now appeared to us, Was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway, Thereto pricked on by a most emulate pride, Dared to the combat; in which our valiant Hamlet – For so this side of our know world esteemed him – Did slay this Fortibras; who, by a sealed compact Well ratified by law and heraldry, Did forfeit, with his life, all these lands Which he stood seised of, to the conqueror; Against the which a moiety competent Was gagéd by our King, which had returned The inheritance of Fortinbras, Had he been vanquisher, as, by the same covenant And carriage of the article designed, His fell to Hamlet.
Back story back story
Important back story
Political battle back story
That, unless you’re really keyed in to Danish/Norwegian political talk
You might just tune out
Because this is one sentence
One LONG sentence
That doesn’t even answer the question.
There were heroics
There was a duel
One king vanquished the other
And land was his reward.
This is the moment when our king became our hero
And then became our ghost.
At least the whisper goes so.
It’s airy
Aspirated
Giving the news
Surrounded by breath
And secrecy.
The rhythm is long and hurried
Three sentences in one
The consonants pop
And the vowels are soft.
It’s the music of the wind
With words in.
That can I.
I’ve got this.
This one, I’ve got.
In this case, I have the answer
I’m the hero
I’m in the know
This one’s mine
I’ll hit this ball
I’ll kick that goal
I ring this bell.
I got it, I got it, I got it
Hand raised
Running across the field
At the chalkboard
In the studio
At the table
In the lab
I got it, I got it, I got it.
Who is’t that can inform me?
Who has found a way to make art unencumbered
By mundane practicalities and marketing concerns?
Who knows how to love without reservation or qualifiers?
Who can move easily through the world, path to path, naturally and easy?
Who can find a way to feed one’s self actual food and clothe one’s self
With actual garments with the art within?
Who is’t that can inform me?
What might be toward that this sweaty haste doth make the night joint laborer with the day?
Day and night
Working together
Sweating together
Lifting the weight of the world
Together.
Good now, sit down, and tell me he that knows why this same strict and most observant watch so nightly toils the subject of the land and why such daily cast of brazen cannon and foreign mart for implements of war, why such impress of shipwrights, whose sore task does not divide the Sunday from the week.
I’m glad you said that
Because I have a sentence so long and so full of pent up information
I’m not sure I could get it out in one breath.
You said “eruption to our state” and I’m off, like a shot.
Like, I know what you mean
Because, man, it has already started.
These be WAR preparations, dontcha know, and not your average war preparations –
No, no, this is round the clock ramping up.
When the guys making the ships don’t get a day off,
You know something serious is afoot.
I mean, overtime for those guys ain’t cheap.
I see things, man,
I got a list.
I got evidence.
I just want some confirmation here.
Can somebody back me up?
But, in the gross and scope of mine opinion, This bodes some strange eruption to our state.
A man who doesn’t believe in prophecy
Suddenly begins to read meaning in signs.
A ghost appears: Our country is fucked.
The one thing doesn’t usually follow the other
But in this case
He’s right.
He may preface his predictions
With qualifications
But the man has put his finger
On the volcano in the midst of Denmark
About to blow.
Then, in telling his friend about it
He hastens its explosion.
In what particular thought to work, I know not.
I spend these hours
Casting about in my mind
Looking for a vein to mine
A stream to fish
A wheel to turn
A row to hoe
Tools at the ready
(pen, paper, desk)
Muscles primed to WORK
But in what particular
Thought to work
I know not.
Thus twice before, and jump at this dead hour, With martial stalk hath he gone by our watch.
I love this sentence.
I want to say it over and over again.
Thus twice before
That’s two times, two times thus
And jump at this dead hour:
An instruction?
A description?
This dead hour
This dead hour that makes us jump
Or he jumps
Or the hour jumps
The second hand has a heart attack
In the silence of an hour of the dead.
With martial stalk
As if a stalking movement weren’t enough
No, no, it must also be martial
To take one’s stalking to a warlike level
Is to take it to a mar
Shall
St
Alk
Hath
He gone by our watch
With martial stalk hath he gone by our watch.
I want to dance to this bit
Do the martial stalk
And march
Or twist
Like the turning of a watch.
The Hamlet Project 