Hey – ho – hi – hellooo – holla!
There is something about the h
That calls out to another
Howdy, even, huh?
H h h h h
I reach across the space between
With this H and this vowel
I hope you can hear me.
Author: erainbowd
Give you good night.
Give you good night.
I say this twice. Same words –
With no “So anyway” before them.
I really want you to understand
To receive
To be given a good night
For your hours to pass quietly and with no
Sense of the time passing
Maybe I know what’s coming
And I’m wishing for it not to happen
Not to you
Not now
Maybe to the next guy
One who’s not so nice to me.
So anyway
Give you good night
Like I said before.
Barnardo hath my place.
Little green lens through which I look at these things
Through the bottom of this green bottle
I see
The lines of choice and fate
Barnardo stands where I should have stood
The river of fate carried him to the shore
I should have stood on
And carried me here.
Barnardo receives what I could have had
He laps up my rewards
He basks in adulation that ought to have been mine
I cannot really blame him (though I’d like to)
He had no more control than I
He didn’t hold me back with his oar
Or even know my name
It was the water that carried him there
And me here
And no matter how hard I swim
I will never stand on Barnardo’s land.
Who hath relieved you?
Shall I make a list?
I know I will forget someone.
When I needed an arm and a hand to hold, she offered one.
Today, that’s what she did. I could not begin to add up all the ways she hath relieved me in the past.
When I thought there was no tenderness on the earth for me – he relieved me, finds new ways to relieve me all the time. He fed me. How can it be recounted?
O mother
O father
O brother
Relief from the vast ocean of unknownness, each of you
Has pulled me, gasping from the salt water
Cousin, friend, teacher, stranger, shopkeeper, you
All have given your moments of relief
My list is long
Your deeds, large and small, sometimes forgotten, but always appreciated.
O, farewell, honest soldier.
Such finality for the end of a shift –
No sense of “Fish biting?” “Nope” or
“Have a good one.” Or “Take care.”
No, as Francisco goes to bed
Marcellus seems as if he’s sending him on a voyage
Across oceans for months
Or into the depths of the ocean for his final tour of duty
In Davy Jones’ locker.
Thanks for all your hard work, Francisco,
For the enemy ranks you have laid open with your blade
For standing guard over the Danes
For filling your uniform with the softness of your body
And holding it all straight.
O, we do not know what your next adventure will be
But we crash our bottle against the hull of your boat
And send you out into the darkness.
Give you good night.
These are my last words in the play
You will not see me again
I will go to my bed
And dream of a ghostly king
And a new one
And one who should have been one
And one who could play all three.
I will wake up to an entirely new world
Wherein I am no longer a Dane
But subject to Norway
Who I will guard with equal diligence
And dream into stories
I am Francisco – I dream it all.
And Liegemen to the Dane.
Not just the earth, no
We owe our loyalties to the men who put the lines around it
We bind ourselves to them
Like they are driftwood floating in the rapids
And if we tie ourselves to their buoyancy
We will glide through the rocky patches
Without being submerged
And if we bump along the shore
Or tear our clothes on sharp stones
Or bruise our bodies on the rocks
We won’t complain
Or release our bonds
No matter what waterfall we tumble over.
Friends to this Ground.
Earth climbed up into our veins here
And got into our blood.
The minerals, the plant detritus, the tiny pebbles, the loam,
The balance that is our soil particularly.
Or is now.
We were born elsewhere where the iron is less prevalent
Where the ground is more red
But this place mingled with the place we left
And both get pumped from the bottom of the heart
And up
Into our very breath.
Who is there?
I don’t trust my own senses anymore
Not my ears, not my eyes
Not my where I am in space
I think that’s you
I think that’s your voice
Your gait
Your footsteps
But I can no longer trust what I see
Or hear
Or smell
Or feel.
Will I believe you when you tell me?
Stand Ho!
Be still
Make a stand
Be a stand
Immobile like a support
For music, for light, for plants, for books
Hold up the sky for a moment
Keep the earth below your feet
Be only in that spot
As the world whirls around you
In the whiz bang sonic book
Of the rushing world
I will call loudly for you to hear me
Into the swirl, into the vortex
Of stillness rushing through your ears.
The Hamlet Project 