Over the grass
Over the mountain
Under the bridge
Little voices growing bigger
Getting closer
They’re whispering
They don’t seem to care if we understand
They’ll just make those sounds
Shape those words
Aspirate those ideas
Until they are here
At our feet
Or at our ears
Or towering above us.
They sound small from a distance
But it could be that what is coming for us is huge
Or it could be smaller than gnats
But I don’t think they’re happy
Those are accusatory whispers
Coming over the walls
And in through the cracks in the floorboards
Author: erainbowd
If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus, The rivals of my watch, bid them make haste.
Watching my watch
As I stand here, on the watch
I’m struck with the way seconds tick by
And how we attempt to hasten them
Minute by minute.
The rivals of my watch
(It’s almost gold and it wants everything ordered and divided into minutes and hours and days)
are blues skies over green grasses under our backs
are slow kisses and hands exploring skin and
crumpled clothing and twisted sheets and sweat
are belly shaking laughter with table pounding insight
are lights pooling on a stage around my feet
are words pouring quickly from my pen
are pages turning, full of story.
These make the second hand spin in vain and each hour
Pass unmarked
Which makes each gear click in frustration.
If I explain to my watch that in the notes of this Penguin Edition of the Play, the word “rivals” means “companions” and that it’s one of those words that now means the opposite
My watch might nod and accept it
It might concede that these moments of timelessness
Are its bosom companions
Ticking along next to one another
Or it might tock from 6 to 7
And scoff at scholars who make convenient translations.
Bid them make haste
Walk more quickly
Think more quickly
Breathe more quickly
Die more quickly
You rivals of my watch.
Well, good night.
If I began to reveal the cracks branching across my mind
I might not be able to stem the openings
And we might both fall through the gaps of fear and anxiety
That I have patched with scotch tape and band-aids.
I can see the shaking of your own tectonic plates
The fault lines under us both stretching well beyond our feet.
There will be a quake
We both know it
And we stand casually in doorways
Pretending nothing’s happening.
Not a mouse stirring.
All is still
Even the air has settled
And will only move a fraction to pass from lung to lung.
It is a frozen stillness
Like a breath, held.
Normally, the world whistles and sways a bit
It rustles, it scratches at the walls
It’s music, abstract and irregular
But comforting somehow
Life, moving through the walls
Blood, moving through the veins
World moving through the sky
Has it all been suspended
Everyone poised where they stand
Sniffing into the future?
Have you had quiet guard?
Scanning the horizon
Listening to the breath come in, then go out
Counting the stars in the sky
Waiting for nothing to happen
Or something.
Attending to what is there and what isn’t.
It’s quiet, yes
but sometimes my own pulse is deafening
the wash of thoughts
the rise of my fears.
I can start to shake in the silence
But I keep my eyes open
Watching for something or nothing.
‘Tis bitter cold, and I am sick at heart.
I stumbled into this freezing night with this ache.
It was a small dissatisfaction at first, a “Damn. It’s cold.”
And “Why’s the moon gotta be dark like that tonight?”
I kicked at the stones
Knocked a few loose pebbles quite a fair distance
But somewhere in the silence
The dullness grew and covered me
And before I knew it, I was weeping
And I couldn’t tell you why.
Was it for a love lost or un-pursued?
A dream I let pull loose from my fingers?
It’s like my heart started with a case of the sniffles
And by the end of my shift, it was wrestling with terminal cancer.
I hope that what troubles me here about my heart
Is not contagious and that I will take it with me
When I go
Or better yet, I could leave it in the long dark corridor on my way away
Where it can shrink and shrivel and disappear.
If I have to, I’ll nurse it under my covers
And hope that it flies away in my dreams.
For this relief much thanks.
Can you feel how heavy that load had become?
As you lift it from my shoulders
Does it pull you down the way it had hung on me
Like a necklace of lead?
The hours
The days of it
Every minute soaking up more discontent
Until this moment when you shared it with me
And what was lead became cotton.
Get thee to bed, Francisco.
Get thee to bed, Francisco.
Wrap yourself up in blankets
Nestle in among your sheets
The night breeze that wafts across your face
Will remind you of where you are not.
Curled up in your cocoon of night, Francisco,
Think of us here where you were
And the warmth will spread from your woolen socks
To the downy comforter tucked around your shoulders.
Sigh, Francisco
Dream, Francisco
Of all the madness you leave behind you
As you head to your bed
Maybe this ghost that appears
Is the steam from Francisco’s dream.
Get thee to bed.
Tis Now Struck Twelve.
The witching hour
On the dot
But you know
I have a feeling that witches
Don’t care about clocks
They don’t believe in 11:42
Anymore than midnight
I think a witch would feel for the darkest spot in a night
Smell the approach of morning
Seek the hour where the animals listen closely
Watch the moon and listen to the grass
Before the gong of the clock.
Men built that clock out of gears and wheels and hammered metal.
Its ticks are ticks that tick along
According to the best mathematical formula
For the location as decided by the Royal Observatory
Up on the hill.
A witch has no use for its chiming
This ritual will begin at 12:37 by your clock
Just when you’re resting easy
Because your clock told you you were safe.
You come most carefully upon your hour
One step at a time
One foot before the other
You take each minute seriously.
Reverently you approach the hour of your arrival
Each breath, a prayer
Each step, bringing you closer.
You note the stones in the pavement
As you cross them
You see the panes in the windows
The temperature as it shifts slightly
Along the path
You want to memorize the stars and the clouds that obscure them
You want to record this smell
This sound
And when the clock strikes the hour
You wonder if it will ring forever.
The Hamlet Project 