Shall I? Shall I?
Could I really?
I have this stick-
It’s really good for beatings.
I’ve been carrying it around for ages
Just waiting for something to come along
For me to strike.
I call it a partisan
Because I can divide my group with this –
You, on this side
You, on that.
I’m itching to use it.
Shall I?
Shall I?
Marcellus
Who is’t that can inform me?
Who has found a way to make art unencumbered
By mundane practicalities and marketing concerns?
Who knows how to love without reservation or qualifiers?
Who can move easily through the world, path to path, naturally and easy?
Who can find a way to feed one’s self actual food and clothe one’s self
With actual garments with the art within?
Who is’t that can inform me?
What might be toward that this sweaty haste doth make the night joint laborer with the day?
Day and night
Working together
Sweating together
Lifting the weight of the world
Together.
Good now, sit down, and tell me he that knows why this same strict and most observant watch so nightly toils the subject of the land and why such daily cast of brazen cannon and foreign mart for implements of war, why such impress of shipwrights, whose sore task does not divide the Sunday from the week.
I’m glad you said that
Because I have a sentence so long and so full of pent up information
I’m not sure I could get it out in one breath.
You said “eruption to our state” and I’m off, like a shot.
Like, I know what you mean
Because, man, it has already started.
These be WAR preparations, dontcha know, and not your average war preparations –
No, no, this is round the clock ramping up.
When the guys making the ships don’t get a day off,
You know something serious is afoot.
I mean, overtime for those guys ain’t cheap.
I see things, man,
I got a list.
I got evidence.
I just want some confirmation here.
Can somebody back me up?
Thus twice before, and jump at this dead hour, With martial stalk hath he gone by our watch.
I love this sentence.
I want to say it over and over again.
Thus twice before
That’s two times, two times thus
And jump at this dead hour:
An instruction?
A description?
This dead hour
This dead hour that makes us jump
Or he jumps
Or the hour jumps
The second hand has a heart attack
In the silence of an hour of the dead.
With martial stalk
As if a stalking movement weren’t enough
No, no, it must also be martial
To take one’s stalking to a warlike level
Is to take it to a mar
Shall
St
Alk
Hath
He gone by our watch
With martial stalk hath he gone by our watch.
I want to dance to this bit
Do the martial stalk
And march
Or twist
Like the turning of a watch.
Is it not like the King?
There sure are a lot of I’s in that question.
They sound different when spoken, of course
But just as a graphic representation. . .
I is popping out of all those one syllable words
Like the eyes in a face – ones with googli-ness
And large glasses that make them even bigger.
Marcellus is beating an I drum
I I I I I I
Or I guess
I I O I E I
But it does make me wonder what Marcellus has at stake
Does he take this ghost personally?
‘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.
It is offended.
How does a ghost demonstrate offense?
Does he throw up his hands and say “Ach!”?
Does he open his mouth and gasp
Before stalking away?
In ghost stories, the kind wherein you can’t see them,
Just their antics,
They will slam doors
Or shut off lights, nay, flash them.
They will rock your bed
Bang your pots and pans
And walk the floor, making floorboards creak
When there’s no one home.
But how does one see offense in the ephemeral face
Of a phantom?
What helps a person read offense in a spirit face?
And what was said that would suggest it might be offended?
The mention of heaven?
Being charged to speak, when in life, this spirit could be commanded by no one?
Having one’s body addressed in lieu of one’s self?
Marcellus, how do you know?
Speak to it, Horatio.
Maybe if I say it one more time
Maybe last time he didn’t hear me
Maybe my words got swallowed up in the hollow of the night and vanished into nothingness
Maybe if I change the position of my head
Or if I say it directly in his ear
He will understand
Or if I make sure he’s looking at me this time
He’ll speak
I can’t insist
I can’t compel or entreat
So I will retreat.
Speak to it, Horatio.
There are those who seem to be able to talk with anyone.
The prime minister, the garbage man, the clerk at the shop.
With every person, the picture of diplomacy and charm
Ease rolls from his tongue
And he receives words as he delivers them
At his birthday, he gives eloquent thank yous
Before extinguishing his candles
When accepting awards, his words are instantly quotable
We turn to him in moments like these
When we know our own words will be inadequate
We know he can find some.
The Hamlet Project 