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Hamlet’s Regret to Ophelia
This letter arrives to you because I have also crossed
the sphere of the living to the shades of the dead
I remember only the man who seemed older than the waves of the sea
approaching swiftly chiding me for arriving late putting his appointments
in disarray
by whatever authority exists in this state of disorder I knew then
I was not dreaming and he had come to collect me as dead
when there are no moorings to guide us when the wind’s compass
itself is doomed does time quickly shed itself once we are dead?
do you recall you wanted to return the gifts I gave you?
I spoke harshly to you saying
I did love you once and then I loved you not
but that was all a trick my love to trap the murderous king
for you lad long ago burst out of me like the shooting star
breaking free violates its ordained path to seek its heart with you
the world well knows each of us bore witness to the folly
and betrayal of others and I did not tell you then
the full story of the horrors that became me
but now we are here in this ghostly place
and you will have become informed of these events
tell me would not the Greek poets so taken with murder
and revenge also weep for us?
I have no wish to justify the wrongs in which I was the cause
what was done cannot be repaired
but someone jammed those lines down our mouths
Ophelia – give me one more chance for a soul who died
before he could give the stars to you
I loved you in life and do still in this dead place
when we meet there shall be no made-up script
no counterfeit lines to bind us
I’ll bring rosemary to remember our lost love
and willow as soft as your touch
lovers even now with hope almost dead
–– Hamlet
In the Time of Memory
The subject of our life and the world is secret
we may decide now’s the time to fly away
but we have learned each day of living
grows deeper into the next
and the dreams we summon
will consume our breath
this is our life
the heart will live until
it cannot see past the darkness
then our breath will know
it is time to summon light
where it first was born
for that final touch of your kiss
Commands of the Poem
Slow slow
ever reluctant
the rain this night
falls in the rhythm of song
I get out of bed
to write these lines to you
is it the will of the poet or does the imagination
come from other depths where seeing resides?
it would be a blunder to imagine a spirit
within our own spirit
that causes these phases to appear
spontaneously from our dreams of nothingness
even flawlessly to be forged from that mysterious
intersection of desire and thoughts of you
the furnace of the imagination
urges the creation that hammers existence into being
from the white heat of your eyes
that transforms itself eventually into love
and so love into the clarity of seeing
the rain dropping on the roof
even when in the
full night of darkness
when only our hearing
embraces and rubs silence
into creation
into your heart
that furiously wants to see
beyond itself
When Memory Forgets
The way you move how you stir the soup in winter
the jam you spread on your homemade bread
and the flowers you place in mother’s old orange vase
memory cannot be robbed of its inheritance
only murdered when twilight comes
you ask what does memory do?
it tells the story about what passed before you – in the present
before it begins to write the history of your eyes
to remember the event is possible
yet not clearly not with the precision
demanded by elegant schemes of orderliness
under the moving liquid ice
then coming up for breath seeing something
vaguely resembling scenes of my life
to breathe to hold onto the world not let go of you
memory knows all this
tries to tell us to recognize what we must know
witness how the wind behaves
when it has stopped running away
and you lost in reverie
under the quivering sky
the beating of your heart
calls the ocean finally to rest
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