I can’t tell whether I put a period at the end of this sentence or not.
Is it a full sentence or does it lead into
“How weary flat. . .”
I don’t know.
It seems complete to me.
A call to God is easily completed in three words.
It can be completed in one
Or none.
Just an upward look will do it
(hands open, arms outstretched, up, up.)
So I suppose it’s up to the editors to decide
If we fully stop here
To take in the exclamation or ready ourselves
For the weariness of the world.
It seems fuller somehow
If this is all there is.
Hamlet
O that this too too sullied flesh would melt Thaw and resolve itself into a dew Or that the everlasting had not fixed His canon ‘gainst self-slaughter.
I almost want Claudius to have touched Hamlet
On the arm
Just as he left
So that he sort of pollutes Hamlet’s body with his
Own befouled body.
This would make the choice to use “sullied” here
So – Right.
When often, “solid flesh” seems to make more sense in context.
Sullied solid
Solid sullied
Too too
Too too
Solid
Too too
Too too sullied
Flesh flesh flesh.
I got excited when I looked at the paper I carry with me
For the purposes of this exercise.
I pulled it out to write
This. . . what do we call it?
Spot of text?
A poem?
A – note?
Whatever –
I got excited. I said “ooh!”
Because this is the first line of Hamlet’s first soliloquy.
Now we’re cooking
Now he’s talking to us
We’re getting to the really good stuff now.
Flesh melting and thawing – becoming dew?
A word like “self-slaughter”?
Why don’t we use “self-slaughter” anymore?
“Suicide” sort of obscures itself in the word.
But we see suddenly why everyone feels so sure
Hamlet wants to die –
Because he bemoans that he can’t do it
The very first time he’s alone with us.
Right away.
He’s got to have a lot cooking under the words
Up to now in order to release into a desire for “self-slaughter”
And suddenly my desire to play this role
Lifts its head (it had been napping) and stretches its limbs.
(What is bubbling beneath in all the lines before? What is he Not saying?)
It wants to play it now.
It wants to explore it all.
I shall in all my best obey you Madam.
You are the queen
Your will is law
Whether or not I wanted to go back
Is moot.
You have made it so.
Demands framed as requests aren’t any less demanding.
This answer is as vague as I can be
To both agree and not agree at once.
I can insist that I will always do as you say
Without explicitly saying that I will remain
As you asked.
I have answered without answering in the same way
You have demanded without demanding.
But I have that within which passes show These but the trappings and the suits of woe.
That which
Passes show –
“Show” stands, showing – the very essence of presentation
footlights
curtains
costumes
is it a lie?
But under that
Past it
Beyond it
There is the real pain
The true tragedy
The unrecognizable grief
And yet –
let me see the show
that shows that.
The cry so full of grief
That it seems unlike a show –
Like a window on the very nerves
The very impulses
The very raw experience.
The show that surpasses show.
These indeed seem for they are actions that a man might play.
For the demonstration of grief:
Beat the breast
Fall to the floor
Wail.
Break the voice into little pieces
Pause
Turn the head away
Hide the eyes in a handkerchief
Sniff and shake the head
Place a black band around the upper arm
Moisten the eyes at the corners with saline
Allow it to drop
Bite the knuckle occasionally
Avert the gaze
Find a hat
Or a veil and
Hide the face
That might reveal the truth.
‘Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother, Nor customary suits of solemn black, Nor windy suspiration of forced breath, No, nor the fruitful river in the eye, Nor the dejected ‘havior of the visage, Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief, That can denote me truly.
Outside
Working in
Cloak
Suit
Breath
Out
Out – but in
In – but out
Breath out
Through the mouth
In the face
Fulfilling the shape
The expected form
Stepping into the mold
Of an emotion and
Fulfilling it
Like play-doh in a frame
Plaster in a mask mold
Not even a mask yet
Just the thing poured
And shaped
Grief like liquid
Going where it is told and
Nowhere else
A thing unaware of itself
Doing what’s expected.
I know not seems.
Concrete facts
The bone
The spine
The things you can hold in your hands.
The ethereal
The spirit
The ineffable something
That seems to shimmer just slightly out of reach –
No, the unknowable ephemeral is precisely that.
Give me the earth
Give me wood
Give me the shine of metal
The body
The breath
Give me what is
Give me what is.
Nay it is.
Yes it isn’t.
Maybe it’s definite
It’s a definite
It’s a definite maybe.
Antithesis in an instant
Instant antithesis
Like oatmeal in a bag
Just add water
Like tears
Or sweat
No no yes.
Seems madam?
A doubling over of fabric
Where piece meets piece
Seeming like a seam
Stitched together with love and attention.
Seams that seem to twist the fabric in the wrong direction
Will sometimes get ripped out
Unstrung with a seam ripper
Which seems violent and unseemly sometimes
But allows for reseaming
Taking what was patchily connected and
Making it more solid
Making it one
Or so it would seem.
Ay Madam it is common.
Ay Madam it is common.
Every day someone dies.
Every day someone’s heart gets broken.
Someone reveals a terrible cruelty
Someone suffers at the hand of another
As common as rain
This sort of tragedy.
But oughtn’t our commonality in the terrible
Bring us more firmly together?
My favorite day in NYC was September 12th
When strangers smiled at one another on the subway
Encouraging one another for just going on
For being there on the train
On the street
With others
Sharing a tremendous grief and
Overflowing with an uncommon generosity
A common uncommon generosity
On the commons
In common
All together.
The Hamlet Project 