Hamlet always seems to shout this at the ghost of his father.
Whenever I’ve seen it, he’s straining toward him
Calling to him, wondering to his ghostly face
If he’s a goblin or from hell.
When I read the part myself last year
I think I did the same. But reading it now –
I see that he says he WILL speak to him.
The speaking will come in the future – and this
Makes so much more sense as a sort of thoughtful aside – perhaps even as far as –
“I’ll call thee” which comes next.
What if there were a period after, “I’ll call thee.” ?
There is then
Consideration, planning and then execution.
If this first bit is not directly to his ghostly father,
We see him considering his strategy
Contemplating his choices
Then rocketing forward.
That’s our Hamlet.
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Think yourself a baby That you have ta’en these tenders for true pay Which are not sterling.
I’m in my father’s living room on the couch that is also my bed when I stay with him.
I have a catalogue and in it are lots of toys.
There’s a doll in there that I have fallen in love with. She’s got
Real looking hair and she’s beautiful. I want to have her.
My father’s girlfriend is with me.
She’s sitting on the navy blue coverlet, across from the TV.
I show her the picture and I ask her about what’s written there. I hear the price.
I say, “Okay! I have fifty!” (Or however much it was. I don’t remember the numbers.)
Karen finds me amusing. She says, “You have fifty dollars?”
I say, “Sure. See?” And I show her my collection of coins. I’m sure I have fifty of them.
She tells me, no, no – this is paper money you need.
I assure her that this will be no problem either as I have plenty of paper money.
I do not yet know the difference between play money and the money that becomes
Much more complicated as I get older – The money that I’ll never have enough of –
Because right there, right then, I have everything
And she’s so silly, this woman, not to believe I can buy this thing.
He hath, my lord, of late made many tenders Of his affection to me.
A single daisy placed in my hair
A note, with just my name and a heart
A gesture, a movement of a strand of my hair behind my hair behind my ear
With which he managed to brush both my cheek
And the slope of my ear and this tender place behind it
This look he gave me as he made a place for me beside him on the bench
A pear that he pulled from the tree while we walked through the garden
A quality of listening while I told him what I thought was a stupid story
The pressure of his hand on my back as we walked in to dinner
The program that he folded into a hat and placed upon my head
A little song he sang to me with my name in it
Time, collapsed into nothing so that there’s nothing to do but look at one another and intertwine our fingers.
My father – methinks I see my father.
He’s sitting in that old yellow chair
Watching his child run wild
Across the carpet.
He is so comfortable there and bemused
To see so much chaos outside of himself.
I bring him, whole cloth to the wedding,
Watching events transpire that might
Bring up a weaker man’s stomach
The chaos and the shame
Spiral out in front of him
But I want him to rise and take up that sledded pole-ax
With which he smote upon the ice
And I want him to start swinging it.
The funeral baked meats Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.
And weren’t the guests gossiping!
“Did you see that slivered boar sandwich?
So clearly the same boar we ate at her husband’s funeral.
Can you imagine?
Are those the same shoes?
The ones with which she followed her husband’s corpse?
Did she just dye those things to match her wedding dress?
How gauche! How uncouth!”
”I don’t know – – – why waste a good boar?
He’s already been roasted and everything
Throw it on there with the rice
Who doesn’t love sliced wild boar?
I could eat it for days.”
I prithee do not mock me, fellow student.
I’m going to teach this line to all the kids I work with
Who inevitably endure more than their fair share of teasing.
I’m going to get them to memorize it and say it in multiple tones
With gravity and with fun.
They’ll try it with pomposity and irreverence.
Then, their assignment,
Their real homework,
Will be to say it, full out
When the painful words start flying.
I wish I’d had it on hand when I was ten
Sitting in the back of the bus
Getting called “Fatty Fatso”
While my friend was taunted with “granny granny glasses.” Or at that slumber party
When that straight haired girl called me a cow.
I’ve tried counseling children in tears
When someone has called them
“hairy arms” or “big head”
or whatever other uncreative slurs that children invent.
I try to explain how the taunts work
How it has nothing to do with
Hairy arms or a big head
But I know that no matter what I say that that child will likely be
Self-conscious about her forearms from that point on.
I don’t know what would happen if a ten year old
Suddenly quoted a Hamlet to a taunting bully
But I suspect it might shock an unsuspecting teaser.
If nothing else, he’d be likely to laugh and switch his taunting
to that crazy thing you just said
which won’t be your fault
it’ll be mine for teaching you such a funny phrase.
In the most high and palmy state of Rome, A little ere the mightiest Julius fell, The graves stood tenantless and the sheeted dead Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets – As stars with trains of fire and dews of blood, Disasters in the sun; and the moist star Upon whose influence Neptune’s empire stands Was sick almost to Doomsday with eclipse.
Hey, at least the horses didn’t eat each other!
Caesar’s death may have caused the dead to rise and make strange noises
It may have caused the sun to go dark
And the stars to rain blood
But no horses eating each other.
Amazing how the death of a monarch
Shakes the very foundations of life.
The dead rose up out of their graves even in anticipation
Of losing Julius Caesar.
Yet, why should the dead care?
What does it matter to the dead
Wrapped in dirty sheets
Who rules?
The earth itself remains the same
No matter whose flags are planted on it.
Why the dead,
Who should be past caring,
Would climb out of the warm earth
To gibber on the streets for an emperor, I cannot fathom.
Except for the fact that it makes a good story.
Tis Strange.
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.
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.
‘Tis gone and will not answer.
No shit, Sherlock.
Once a thing is gone
It’s a rare day when it will THEN
Make a reply.
Maybe the gone- thing will send you a letter
A postcard
Or give you a call on the phone
These days it might text you from the beyond
Or send you a Facebook message
But gone is gone
And you can question it all you like
But its answer will be on its own terms
If it says anything
It will be because the gone-thing
Has one last thing to say.
The Hamlet Project 