HAMLET

To be

Or not to be...

It is no longer the question

It is the temptation.

The bitter wine in the cup

And the poisoned sword in the hands of the foe-

All is forethought and weighed.

And the veil

will fall off

at the foreordained moment.

My father might have been sleeping

in the Garden of Jutland

and my role now is the legacy of his astray trust,

and the bed of the ploy

the conquest front of my uncle.

[And I learned it

all at once

within a gaze

at the instance of sight.]

Alas!

Could trust have not heaved this other Abel

to this other abattoir

ornamented by lullaby of drunkenness

O God,

Alas!

And what a hoax!

O such hoax!

For the one who stands behind the veil

knows it wholly about the hung upon disaster.

And my tragedy

to him

is not but merely known

word by word.

***

And behind the pastel curtain of darkness

eyes, watching eyes

observe

the tale of my ordeal.

Pieces of gold and of silver

generously paid

to the painter of the scheme

and to the forged sentinel of the truth

and to the spectators of the scene

of tears and sacrifice.

How vain to call

in recourse these Judas

For at the end

me and my uncle

will be likewise asked to abide.

And how vain to recall

that now Claudius

is no longer a proper name

but the name of a kind.

And the veil...

At the predestined moment...

***

After all

Since the truth

like a vagabond ghost

revealed itself to me

and the putrid smell of the world

like a shimmery mirage

of fire and of smoke

in the disguise of lantern

overwhelmed me,

To be

Or not to be

is no longer the question,

But it is the temptation.