Hamlet Off-Stage: Laertes Cool

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1. Hamlet Off-Stage: She Wheel Ophelia puked hourly dawn till dusk, Retching mucous slobber, then spewing air. Scum that I am, I never stopped thinking What a beauty: small Icelandic hooters, Femme d’Bumpers, on whom all fun depends. Woman’s the car, man the hood ornament. She lay there so sick she wasn’t human, More an engine blowing jello gaskets. Yet, […]...
2. Hamlet Off-Stage: Mel Gibson Dolls It Mel Gibson’s Hamlet stinks doll Mel. Wind up Mel and Mel’s eyes glaze into porcelain, Blue gulfs of earnestness, and Gertrude Sucks it up, swilling Mel’s sincerity Makes me want to haul off and retch my speech About the dew, dissolve into ADIEU. My family doesn’t understand water. The closest dad ever shies to water’s […]...
3. Hamlet Off-Stage: The Magnolia Closet “Let the words of my mouth and the meditations Of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight.” Whoever “Thy” is, that’s the prayer to breathe, Words that chimed in my head while I stood under The first magnolia blossom of the year, Gift of God? Elvis? Allah? or Liberace? Who provides the rococo razzledazzle? What’s […]...
4. Hamlet Off-Stage: Mona Gator Our mascot lives low, a baby alligator. She’s our happy-and-sad mask all at once, Mona Lisa her name. She’s my ideal, Her wrap-around grin both a smile and snarl....
5. Hamlet Off-Stage: Snail Peels Off For quick mental hygiene, the snail’s my white Mobile clinic, Dr. Hoodoo inside. Seriously. The snail’s my man. He’s shy, Shows speedy patience and plays safe, keeps his Hard hat on should a curve come on too fast. And paves his road in case he must return. That’s not timid. That’s prudently Roman....
6. Hamlet Off-Stage: Hambeau Heartbroke Horny Ophelia claims we’re dead and gives me back All my Frank Zappa and the Mothers albums. I nearly claw out of my shell and say, “You can’t,” but for a moment I’ve nothing To quote. I’m rot, mortis of broken heart. Hog wash! Lovers don’t die of broken hearts. Lovebirds perish because of broken heads, […]...
7. Hamlet Off-Stage: Neutrinos Explain Suck-Uppers Neutrinos do zip but swap back and forth Into each other, much like Rosypoop And Guildendoo do. For years it was thought Neutrinos hung out weightless as R&G. No longer. Scientists have discovered Neutrinos possess mass. Though invisible, Neutrinos weigh as much as all the stars. How could I have thought the R & G […]...
8. Millennium The great millennium is at hand. Redder apples grow on the tree. A saxophone is in ev’ry band. Brandy no longer taints our tea. Dimples smile in the red-rouged knee. The dowagers are no longer fat. Radio now makes safe the sea- And the Turk has bought him a derby hat. Even our sauerkraut now […]...
9. Hamlet Micure In a lingering fever many visions come to you: I was in the little house again With its great yard of clover Running down to the board-fence, Shadowed by the oak tree, Where we children had our swing. Yet the little house was a manor hall Set in a lawn, and by the lawn was […]...
10. All the World's a Stage All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant, Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms. Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel And shining morning […]...
11. The Tenants Of The Little Box Throw into the little box A stone You’ll take out a bird Throw in your shadow You’ll take out the shirt of happiness Throw in your father’s root You’ll take out the axle of the universe The little box works for you Throw into the little box A mouse You’ll take out a quaking hill […]...
12. Intramuros She lies in her well-kept apartment Above the spick and span cathedral In the heart of the walled city Above Manila Bay and she dreams Of the great, ruined cities of Europe: Vienna crumbling into the ocean, Warsaw in a plague of frogs and flies And London, where all the black men Have learned to […]...
13. The Cool Web Children are dumb to say how hot the day is, How hot the scent is of the summer rose, How dreadful the black wastes of evening sky, How dreadful the tall soldiers drumming by. But we have speech, to chill the angry day, And speech, to dull the rose’s cruel scent. We spell away the […]...
14. In The Cool Of The Evening I thought I heard Him calling. Did you hear A sound, a little sound? My curious ear Is dinned with flying noises, and the tree Goes whisper, whisper, whisper silently Till all its whispers spread into the sound Of a dull roar. Lie closer to the ground, The shade is deep and He may pass […]...
15. O Cool Is the Valley Now O cool is the valley now And there, love, will we go For many a choir is singing now Where Love did sometime go. And hear you not the thrushes calling, Calling us away? O cool and pleasant is the valley And there, love, will we stay....
16. Cool Tombs WHEN Abraham Lincoln was shoveled into the tombs, he forgot the copperheads and the assassin… in the dust, in the cool tombs. And Ulysses Grant lost all thought of con men and Wall Street, cash and collateral turned ashes… in the dust, in the cool tombs. Pocahontas’ body, lovely as a poplar, sweet as a […]...
17. Not In A Silver Casket Cool With Pearls Not in a silver casket cool with pearls Or rich with red corundum or with blue, Locked, and the key withheld, as other girls Have given their loves, I give my love to you; Not in a lovers’-knot, not in a ring Worked in such fashion, and the legend plain- Semper fidelis, where a secret […]...
18. Baby Vamps BABY vamps, is it harder work than it used to be? Are the new soda parlors worse than the old time saloons? Baby vamps, do you have jobs in the day time or is this all you do? do you come out only at night? In the winter at the skating rinks, in the summer […]...
19. The People Upstairs The people upstairs all practise ballet Their living room is a bowling alley Their bedroom is full of conducted tours. Their radio is louder than yours, They celebrate week-ends all the week. When they take a shower, your ceilings leak. They try to get their parties to mix By supplying their guests with Pogo sticks, […]...
20. They All Want to Play Hamlet THEY all want to play Hamlet. They have not exactly seen their fathers killed Nor their mothers in a frame-up to kill, Nor an Ophelia dying with a dust gagging the heart, Not exactly the spinning circles of singing golden spiders, Not exactly this have they got at nor the meaning of flowers-O flowers, flowers […]...
21. The Sin Of Hamlet The horns in the harbor booming, vaguely, Fog, forgotten, yesterday, conclusion, Nostalgic, noising dim sorrow, calling To sleep is it? I think so, and childhood, Not the door opened and the stair descended, The voice answered, the choice announced, the Trigger touched in the sharp declaration! And when it comes, escape is small; the door […]...
22. Lines in Defence of the Stage Good people of high and low degree, I pray ye all be advised by me, And don’t believe what the clergy doth say, That by going to the theatre you will be led astray. No, in the theatre we see vice punished and virtue rewarded, The villain either hanged or shot, and his career retarded; […]...
23. Another Awkward Stage Of Convalescence Drunk, I kissed the moon Where it stretched on the floor. I’d removed happiness from a green bottle, Both sipped and gulped Just as a river changes its mind, Mostly there was a flood in my mouth Because I wanted to love the toaster As soon as possible, and the toothbrush With multi-level brissels Created […]...
24. Sonnet 23: As an unperfect actor on the stage As an unperfect actor on the stage Who with his fear is put beside his part, Or some fierce thing replete with too much rage, Whose strength’s abundance weakens his own heart, So I, for fear of trust, forget to say The perfect ceremony of love’s rite, And in mine own love’s strength seem to […]...
25. PLEA FOR A HISTORY OF WORKING-CLASS LEEDS I want a true history of my city FUCK THE DE LACY FAMILY AND DOUBLE FUCK JOHN OF GAUNT ESPECIALLY And all his descendants With their particular vilenesses – I met one in the sixties Who had all the coldness of Himmler So svelte and adored by the cognoscenti. I want a history responsive To […]...
26. Temporary Poem Of My Time Hebrew writing and Arabic writing go from east to west, Latin writing, from west to east. Languages are like cats: You must not stroke their hair the wrong way. The clouds come from the sea, the hot wind from the desert, The trees bend in the wind, And stones fly from all four winds, Into […]...
27. Cartoon I AM making a Cartoon of a Woman. She is the People. She is the Great Dirty Mother. And Many Children hang on her Apron, crawl at her Feet, snuggle at her Breasts....
28. Discipline Throw away thy rod, Throw away thy wrath: O my God, Take the gentle path. For my heart’s desire Unto thine is bent: I aspire To a full consent. Not a word or look I affect to own, But by book, And thy book alone. Though I fail, I weep: Though I halt in pace, […]...
29. The Houses ‘Twixt my house and thy house the pathway is broad, In thy house or my house is half the world’s hoard; By my house and thy house hangs all the world’s fate, On thy house and my house lies half the world’s hate. For my house and thy house no help shall we find Save […]...
30. 16-bit Intel 8088 chip with an Apple Macintosh You can’t run Radio Shack programs In its disc drive. Nor can a Commodore 64 Drive read a file You have created on an IBM Personal Computer. Both Kaypro and Osborne computers use The CP/M operating system But can’t read each other’s Handwriting For they format (write On) discs in different […]...
31. A Cruel Mistress We read of kings and gods that kindly took A pitcher fill’d with water from the brook ; But I have daily tender’d without thanks Rivers of tears that overflow their banks. A slaughter’d bull will appease angry Jove, A horse the Sun, a lamb the god of love, But she disdains the spotless sacrifice […]...
32. Turns I thought it made me look more ‘working class’ (as if a bit of chequered cloth could bridge that gap!) I did a turn in it before the glass. My mother said: It suits you, your dad’s cap. (She preferred me to wear suits and part my hair: You’re every bit as good as that […]...
33. Tall Nettles TALL nettles cover up, as they have done These many springs, the rusty harrow, the plough Long worn out, and the roller made of stone: Only the elm butt tops the nettles now. This corner of the farmyard I like most: As well as any bloom upon a flower I like the dust on the […]...
34. On On yardbird corners of embryonic hopes, drowned in a heroin tear. On yardbird corners of parkerflights to sound filled pockets in space. On neuro-corners of striped brains & desperate electro-surgeons. On alcohol corners of pointless discussion & historical hangovers. On television corners of cornflakes & rockwells impotent America. On university corners of tailored intellect & […]...
35. Cartoon Physics, Part 1 Children under, say, ten, shouldn’t know That the universe is ever-expanding, Inexorably pushing into the vacuum, galaxies Swallowed by galaxies, whole Solar systems collapsing, all of it Acted out in silence. At ten we are still learning The rules of cartoon animation, That if a man draws a door on a rock Only he can […]...
36. Houses (For Aline) When you shall die and to the sky Serenely, delicately go, Saint Peter, when he sees you there, Will clash his keys and say: “Now talk to her, Sir Christopher! And hurry, Michelangelo! She wants to play at building, And you’ve got to help her play!” Every architect will help erect A palace […]...
37. Mortality The first-class brains of a senior civil servant Shiver and shatter and fall As the steering column of his comfortable Humber Batters in the bony wall. All those delicate re-adjustments “On the one hand, if we proceed With the ad hoc policy hitherto adapted To individual need… On the other hand, too rigid an arrangement […]...
38. The Survivor I am twenty-four Led to slaughter I survived. The following are empty synonyms: Man and beast Love and hate Friend and foe Darkness and light. The way of killing men and beasts is the same I’ve seen it: Truckfuls of chopped-up men Who will not be saved. Ideas are mere words: Virtue and crime Truth […]...
39. Reuben Bright Because he was a butcher and thereby Did earn an honest living (and did right), I would not have you think that Reuben Bright Was any more a brute than you or I; For when they told him that his wife must die, He stared at them, and shook with grief and fright, And cried […]...
40. Henry Clay's Mouth Senator, statesman, speaker of the House, Exceptional dancer, slim, Graceful, ugly. Proclaimed, before most, slavery An evil, broker Of elections (burned Jackson For Adams), took a pistol ball in the thigh In a duel, delayed, by forty years, With his compromises, the Civil War, Gambler (“I have always Paid peculiar homage to the fickle goddess”), […]...