Who could I say this to?
To whom would I be willing to be a poor servant?
I love – and love heartily and willingly –
I will give as much as I have, as much as I can
But could I indenture myself to someone I love?

How about something?
I feel like a poor servant to Art.
I show up in my dirty maid’s dress and apron, coal dust under my nails
Hands raw from scrubbing and I say to Art,
“Is there anything else I can do for you?”
And when art sends me to the scullery
To peel sacks of potatoes for its banquet
(to which I will not be invited)
I bow and say, “Of course. Right away.”
I will sit in that scullery,
A thin shawl wrapped around my shoulders,
Sliding peels into a bucket,
Feeling grateful for the work.

Horatio will call Hamlet “Lord” in every line in this scene.
Hamlet calls him “my good friend” and “fellow student”
With seeming great warmth
But every time
Horatio calls Hamlet “my lord.”
Did he do this in Wittenberg?
When they were sitting in Philosophy ckass
Debating the nature of time,
Did Horatio say, “Pardon me, my lord, but your theories
Are full of shit and completely unfounded.”?
At the late night parties, when Hamlet struggled to keep his feet in order
after a bit too much ale,
did Horatio say, “My lord, you’ve puked up on your jacket, hug not me!”?
It’s a curious formality among friends
Even if one of them is a prince.

I wonder though, if this is a result of being on the Prince’s home turf.
Horatio, not a native Dane,
Isn’t sure how to behave suddenly –
Like someone in a fancy house
In which the rules of etiquette are quite different
From what he grew up with.
Is Horatio holding up the salad fork, wondering
What do with it?
Bowing at the wrong moment?
Afraid to make a dent in the cushy sofa
So he sits on the edge
Bolt upright
Nodding “yessir” and “Nossir”
And knocking over his drink.

Horatio speaks of our loves
Plural.
It’s clear that he loves our Hamlet
But I’m not so sure about Marcellus and Barnardo
We never really see them again.
If they love Hamlet, too,
Where are they as this play evolves?
Devolves?
Is this, in fact, some kind of royal “our”
Or do subjects, just as a rule,
Love their prince?
Our hour has come to
Meet this beloved Prince with
Duty and love. We’ll all be acquainted shortly.

Now I’m talkin’ like a fairy. Or a poet.
I’m anthropomorphizing the moon
Sending it walking over dewy hills
Dressed in red robes.
One night with a ghost and I turn poetic.
In an instant.
This makes sense, though, right?
After an enormous shock, you do
See things differently
The branches of a tree stand out
The smell of wild grasses strikes you
When it hasn’t before
You see the circular math of roses.
What is a poem but a close –up on a moment
A close up, like a camera
But with words.
A poem amplifies
Or miniaturizes
Those things that might otherwise disappear into the scene.
It is that one blade of grass
The one bending toward you like a courtier
Heaving under a dew drop.
It is that moon, dressed in reddish brown
Gliding over a hill.

Horatio’s in it now.
From fortified against their story
To believing in witches, fairies and ghosts
In part, though,
Only in part.
Which part is it, I wonder?
Ghosts, clearly, since he’s just seen one
And tried to charm it somehow –
But what else?
Is Horatio changing his religion as we watch?
From stoic to pagan
Or Atheist to Christian?
The disruption of logic in a logical world
Is more chaotic
Than chaos added to chaos.

This sentence doesn’t make much sense, Horatio.
Is he saying that what they just saw
Tested the hypothesis he just stated?
Sure is a funny way to say that, Horatio.
Are you a lawyer? Are you a scientist?
Well – you are an academic –
Maybe you get used to arcane syntax and using more words
Than necessary.
This present object? Are you referring to
The ghost?
Is he the present object?
Or the rooster?
Maybe I’m a little slow
But it seems like a funny time
To start talking like a lawyer.
Upon the disappearance of a ghost
That I didn’t believe in a few minutes ago,
I’m pretty sure I’d be pulling out the vowels
The Oh
The Wow
The Wha?
“And of the truth herein, this present object made probation?”
Come on.

Who is this god of day?
Does he hang with Phoebus Apollo
Or Ra in Egypt?
I picture him as bright and sunny,
Rubbing his godly great eyes
As the rooster crows,
Ready to rule over his dominion.
What does he do if he sees the dark spirits
Hanging around after a good night’s haunting?
Does he chase them into corners?
Reduce them to ash?
Make them writhe in agony of the brightness of the morning?
Luckily, it probably takes a little while
for the god of morning to roll over
the lip of his bed
into the full force of his power.
The tardy spirit may have a moment or two
To secret himself into the vanishing darkness.

Later in this play
Another king will start
Like a guilty thing
Upon a fearful summons.
Well, upon a play
Upon a theme.
This other king
Will echo the first
In more ways than one.
He will echo him
In love
In war
In craving revenge
Echoes upon echoes
Reverberating throughout
Starting and summoning.