Certainly
When the past meets the present
Tis
Strange
When a moment from long ago
Seemingly unrepeatable
Replicates itself
In the now
It is
Strange
Folding time
Like an origami crane
It meets itself
In unexpected places.
Author: erainbowd
So frowned he once when, in an angry parle, he smote the sledded poleaxe on the ice.
How in the blazes does Horatio know how Hamlet, the king,
FROWNED
In a battle years ago?
Was he there watching?
Did someone sketch the frown of the king as he did his smiting?
It’s also not clear what a sledded poleaxe might be
Poleaxe, Pollacks. . .and what makes it, or them, sledded?
And who took notes?
Why return to this battle after death, King Hamlet?
Why freeze yourself anew, ready to smite upon the ice?
Horatio recognizes this expression, though. . .
It brings it all back to mind. . .
That particular frown
That particular SMOTE.
Such was the very armor he had on when he the ambitious Norway combated.
When battling with ambition
It is a good idea to put some armor on.
When returning to the life you’ve left
It makes sense to put that same armor on.
Ambition is a serious opponent.
You must be subtle
You must be keen
Get inside its skin
As it gets inside yours.
Make your armor well
Forge it with love
With grace
With delicacy
The metal of the past will be no match against it.
As thou art to thyself.
I know this isn’t what he’s saying
But I put these words in a kaleidoscope
And I see me
And my art
Cells intertwined
As I am myself
As my art is itself
As we two are one mixed up thing
Little bits of art
Next to little bits of self
All starred
All circled
And diamonded together
Into a firework of being.
Is it not like the King?
There sure are a lot of I’s in that question.
They sound different when spoken, of course
But just as a graphic representation. . .
I is popping out of all those one syllable words
Like the eyes in a face – ones with googli-ness
And large glasses that make them even bigger.
Marcellus is beating an I drum
I I I I I I
Or I guess
I I O I E I
But it does make me wonder what Marcellus has at stake
Does he take this ghost personally?
Before God, I might not this believe without the sensible and true avouch of mine own eyes.
If you heard it
You might not believe it.
If you felt it
You’d question it.
If you smelled it
You’d credit your imagination.
If you tasted it
Or sensed it in any other way,
It would not be enough.
It is the eyes
The judge and jury
The gavel banger of the senses.
We use all the others first.
We hear, nestled in the womb,
Feel the turn in the circle of fluid,
Smell the world as we raise our heads into it,
Seek out the breast with our feeling lips
And taste what will feed us.
Later, later, we begin to understand with these
Guiding balls of jelly
And as we do,
Sight takes over
Standing on all the other knowings
And shushing them.
What think you on’t?
Set your mind atop this idea
Settle it in, like a bird on its nest
Turn it around and around
Til you find the right spot
Don’t sit too hard on it
Too much weight will break the shell
But fan your feathers over it
Spread your thoughts wide
And something will hatch.
Is not this something more than fantasy?
What can be more than fantasy?
More fantasy?
Is reality more than fantasy?
I suspect not.
Fantasy feels like reality but more of it.
It is greater than reality
Wider than what is before us
More expansive than what we can see.
Something more than fantasy
Must be fantasy several times over
A vibrant fantastical other-ness
Vibrating over the horizon.
You tremble and look pale.
I’m not sure it’s polite to tell someone they’re trembling
Fear isn’t really socially acceptable
Not unless it’s in the dark
In front of a screen with manufactured monsters
Stalking the night.
We’re all doing our best to appear unafraid
Or to appear as if we do not notice the fear
Wafting from our formerly fearless friend
What would we do then
If we stepped into the terror?
Would we hold each other, shaking in the dark
Or drift away into corners
Further and further away.
How now, Horatio?
Ow ow oh oh
Concern expressed as pain
Perhaps in the way that we mirror what we see
Pain on your face
I feel in mine
My mirror neurons firing
In absolute reflection of what I see before me.
You grasp a cup.
In my mind
I grasp a cup as well.
Your face twists in agony
In the busy center of my brain
I twist my own face
To understand.
Right now,
I’m watching a couple fight on the corner;
Her back and his face brightened by the setting sun.
She is furious.
He is defending.
She points, she makes faces of disgust.
He nods – holds his hand on his heart.
Opens his hand, in a sort of defensive but peaceful way
She opens her arms widely
He has folded his close
And tilted his head to side.
Now they are walking away together
But stop at the next corner to fight again.
She goes on.
He sits and holds his head in his hand.
She returns.
She sets her handbag down with a POOM
In order to better make her point.
In my mind,
I too have set my handbag down
And I also sat down to hold my head in my hand.
As the crowd swirls around them,
They remain by the wall.
I light them up
Mirror them
Trying to understand
What has happened.
From here
I can’t tell if they will work it out
But I’m invested in them now.
My little mirror of them
Wants them to solve it in my view
So I can have peace within myself.
It is their fight, not mine
But my brain knows no difference.
They’re off again
5 feet between them
then 3
then 2
then 1.
The Hamlet Project 