I am writing a play, and the ink is
wine
or
the wine is ink—I don’t know which.
Iago
will not stop babbling his convoluted plot
to
make me jealous and kill the bitch,
but
which one? I have made so many.
I
only wish to kiss the lips of Juliet,
a
palmer and a pilgrim who will get her yet.
What
are these screams from a Globe on a globe
crying
for a gaggle of hag, a trio of witch?
I
have papers to grade in this oak-paneled cove
at
the edge of the ivy-colored quad,
the
wild yet carefully-planted Forest of Arden
while
the Avon carries the street, the ford, the garden.
Spritely
Ariel spins my mind like the moon:
the
play’s the thing wherein I’ll catch
the
conscience of the wrongful king
while
Prospero, magician extraordinaire,
conjures
up a storm so that Miranda,
a
lipstick looker and first-class babe,
might
marry her flamenco jape and jade.
Between
you and me, I spin it all out of air.
Call
me Will. I am the bard and he is me.
The
essays are done and the claret is near.
I
do the iambic nine-to-five and lecture on the lines,
but
who’s to say I’m not the seer
in
the long ago or the still to come in time?
~William Hammett
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