If you are Horatio, let me be Hamlet
Because I need you right by my side
If I must face what is to face

If you are Horatio, let me be Hamlet
Because if I face what is inside
I might need you to be my brace

If you are Horatio, let me be Hamlet
Because if I need someone to hide
All the ghosts I see, it’d be my ace

If you are Horatio, let me be Hamlet
Because if I get caught up in the tide
I’d need you to bring me down from space

If you are Horatio, let me be Hamlet
Because when my hands are seldom tied
I’d need you to come unlace

If you are Horatio, let me be Hamlet
Because if there is someone to be alongside
You’d be in just the right place

Because if you are Horatio,
let me be Hamlet

It was only a legend, my dears,
A normal town, living in fear,
There were fat feral urban virgins here,
Hell bent on their pleasures, cheers!
"Down with boys' daks, get here!"
A whole town living in fear,
Was it all an urban myth, my dears?
Urban virgins strolling the streets,
Battleships waiting for boys to meet,
Immaculate conception, each miss,
Having divine parthogenesis,
Yes, real fat funster chicks,
It was all about *******,
For each little Horatio,
Or was it a fantasy of bliss,
From an  urban ****** miss?
Did urban virgins wander away?
Normal town, not a normal day,
A normal town, living in fear...
It was an urban legend, my dears.

Oh Hamlet, what a troubled life you had in the end
How cruel, How sad, How fast was your life
I still can't believe you are gone, my dear lord and friend
You bravely avenged your father and this kingdom's honour
To be or not to be, noble Hamlet our friendship was like honey to bee's
Oh my wretched soul, does ache for your quick dismissal
I don't know how your true self stayed sane in all the insanity
Your story shall live on through time, that this deed may not come again
You were like a brother to me and I to you
May your soul find heaven along with your great father
It hurts to much to say goodbye, so for now adieu till I see thee again.

Jay                                                                      Horatio

By the door in the flower ***                            The man who planted all these trees
Among the beans in the veggie plot                Alas I knew him well
In the lawn, everywhere -little oak trees-         He did not see them to maturity
Do you know who puts them there?                How long our years we cannot tell

I've only ever seen it once                                  Now strong and spreading to their prime
He does it when you're not around                  They seem to thank him for their chance of life
He does it taking lots of care                             In gratitude they sway and soar
He puts an acorn in the ground                        And breathe for him as he can breathe no more

He thinks he's coming back to it                      We thank the Jay for acorns
When he feels the need                                      Unwittingly he sows
But mostly he forgets                                         And plant like him we must
So germinates the seed                                       Although like him we may not see them fully grow

                                       As I look up at this fresh green canopy
                                             I think of all the tiny saplings
                                                   And of what will be

This is Horatio's elegy,
He and the mousetrap had synergy,
That's the end of mouse energy,
Alas, Horatio is no more,
That fur friend predator,
He ran into the  mousetrap's door,
Alas, Horatio is no more!
How to embellish this ode?
I'm in hunter-gatherer mode,
Shall I serve him up for lunch?
Nuke him for tasty munch?
Eat it skin on for nutrients,
Now I know what Nigella meant,
No, Horatio wasn't pregnant,
Now I have a fur friend remnant,
That little mouse predator,
Of mice I am no amator,
Alas, Horatio is no more!!

When Hamlet was young,
All was good,
Elsinore was proud,
Hamlet was young,
Ophelia too.  

Now he is older,
Not everything is good,
Some things still are,
His uncle is his father in law,
This is not so good.  

Now he is dead,
Ophelia is dead,
Laertes is dead,
Gertrude is dead,
Cladius is dead,
Yorick... is dead,
but he was at the start,
so he doesn't count.  
Rosen... Guilden... dead
Old hamlet is dead,
Plonius is dead.
Horatio is alive;
can't imagine he's very happy,
because everyone else is dead.

Laurence Olivier is handsome,
he's dead too.

a wise eyed cynic
head full of rational thought
ignored by his only friend

as i descend into madness,
will you be my Horatio?
standing through it all
with the utmost clarity?

Oh, to be Horatio
as your closest friends are dragged into the clutches of insanity

After comparing lives with you for years
I see how I’ve been losing: all the while
I’ve met a different gauge of girl from yours.
Grant that, and all the rest makes sense as well:
My mortification at your pushovers,
Your mystification at my fecklessness—
Everything proves we play in separate leagues.
Before, I couldn’t credit your intrigues
Because I thought all girls the same, but yes,
You bag real birds, though they’re from alien covers.


Now I believe your staggering skirmishes
In train, tutorial and telephone booth,
The wife whose husband watched away matches
While she behaved so badly in a bath,
And all the rest who beckon from that world
Described on Sundays only, where to want
Is straightway to be wanted, seek to find,
And no one gets upset or seems to mind
At what you say to them, or what you don’t:
A world where all the nonsense is annulled,


And beauty is accepted slang for yes.
But equally, haven’t you noticed mine?
They have their world, not much compared with yours,
But where they work, and age, and put off men
By being unattractive, or too shy,
Or having morals—anyhow, none give in:
Some of them go quite rigid with disgust
At anything but marriage: that’s all lust
And so not worth considering; they begin
Fetching your hat, so that you have to lie


Till everything’s confused: you mine away
For months, both of you, till the collapse comes
Into remorse, tears, and wondering why
You ever start such boring barren games
—But there, don’t mind my saeva indignatio:
I’m happier now I’ve got things clear, although
It’s strange we never meet each other’s sort:
There should be equal chances, I’d’ve thought.
Must finish now. One day perhaps I’ll know
What makes you be so lucky in your ratio


—One of those ‘more things’, could it be? Horatio.

Countless strangers sit or stand in wonder
at tall statues and head-height tombs
of solid, austere men who cannot utter
a word to explain the cathedral’s gloom.
The ostentatious architecture’s croon
from a tattered breeze
dithers through deathless abbeys
where memorialized men lay strewn.

The vacillation of their hearts
remains hidden like it did in life,
their public presence disallowed it then
as carved marble and stone now imparts.
That common unresting inner strife;
what was and what could have been.

I know it well (as well as I can),
that unfinished man Frederic Leighton’s tomb,
his beautifully ebullient Flaming June
brought to mind as I gaze on the grave
breathlessly overwhelmed, trying to understand
how anyone can frown on how artists behave.

That thought-drowned sculptor Henry S. Moore
is situated among the others, beguiled
without grave, a resting statue, “Mother & Child”:
in the smoothed out bends of arching stone,
from troughs between figures down to the floor
I read his face, all it held and could hold alone.

Down the crypt on straight-cut-steps I descend,
pressing on further through candle-lit corridors,
commemorations surround in half-light that offends
receding memories on sandless shores.
Horatio Nelson, John Donne, Sir Flemming, Chris Wren,
each pass till I find a man I’d adore:
Philip Sidney, that grounded man, that defender of art,
consumed in the ensuing century’s heart.

Consumed likewise I stand
gasping, beached upon a strand
of a non-physical contagion;
we’ll suffer it all again.


Three minutes more or less I gaped
until my feet forced my face away
and weaved my soul among the wooden pews.
This hallowed place where the past is draped
is an icicle looped through the fray
of my ambition’s thinning view.

Another adoration there!
That visionary mythology sewer
William Blake, whose piteous glower
for mankind begot his lasting dream.
On his placard chiseled rhyming pairs
beg: take things, not as they seem.

My fingers run the lines of text
slowly, strongly, as if forced by the air.
I fall down a thousand winding stairs
taller than St. Paul’s in my heart.
I compose all my strength to regain context
of cathedral, pull away from Blake, part.

Up the stairs I climb
back to the street.
The rustling, busy fleet
of tourists entwines
about me in my haste
to get outside the tomb,
that time-reversed womb,
of men who didn’t waste
time, place, talent, skill,
but impressed their lives on eternity.
The clock is still,
I’m out in the street –
cathedral shadows
twirling high, then low,
over my body and feet.

What is there, inside that place, is intangible and petrified by reality;
it is trailing smoke from the pipes of sages who spoke,
in broken thoughts, sworn things that cannot be repealed.
It is time unwoven and crocheted again into patchworks of undefinable color.
I must have died a hundred times unaware of it all – out of nothing it called.
It was felt and known, ended and rebuilt accidentally out of the contagion of guilt.
It was a small drag off of nothing.

Horatio Alger is whispering his stories in my sleeping ear
painting me as a lowly street urchin
who conquers adversities and moral wildernesses
with only my wit, determination, and guts
and he is painting me as a phoenix of the new world
rising from ashes of banality and
the naturalized familial trappings of my past
a dirt road in the socioeconomic desert
carved out with care by the hands of forefathers I will never know
but Mr. Alger died a long while ago
and the sun inevitably rises
shattering the stained glass story of my rags turned riches
now the big men upstairs
jot me down as numbers on a chart
of consumption trends of millennials
Go to college
they say
make something of yourself
they say
you are all too entitled
they say
What went wrong
they say without a hint of contradiction
I am not equipped to say if the story of humanity
is a cycle or a downwards spiral
I am not equipped to say
that it is the job of every generation
to ensure that they clear the debris
from the path of their progeny
but I say it anyway
everybody want’s a trophy
because we were raised to believe that
everybody deserves a trophy
In the same breath they expect us
to take the puritanical mantle of the breadwinner
the frayed saddle of the noble western outlaw
the lethally honed sword of the entrepreneur
the martyr making cross of the socially conscious family man
and then wonder why we so willingly
give ourselves over to the currents
of apathy and passivity and masochistic narcissism
giving us guns and bullets with no idea how to shoot them
so instead we turn them into sculptures of modern art
and scream to the empty heavens
for just a hint of recognition
I can’t decide if history will forget us
or memorize the lyrics of our collective heart beats
but I have decided
to wake up from my American Dream
have decided
to forge my own reality

That Mexican hunger of memory,
That 7- 10 evening shift,
Campesinos de Chihuahua,
Sinaloans de Durango,
Day laborers:
Organized Labor’s stubborn cohort,
Largely ungovernable,
With Union Label conspicuous in absence.
Labor Unions:
Largely dead in America,
Except for SIEU, of course,
Making astonishing strides in unskilled circles.
SIEU: The Future of the American Labor Movement,
Eugene Debs rolling over in his grave again.
But I digress.
Mexican gardeners:
Doing most of southern California’s
Weekly landscaping these days.
Tree-trimming in evening twilight,
Certainly an extracurricular
Earning activity these days.
“Hustlers Only” need apply.
Adding five or ten or twenty,
Cash on Tio Sammy's barrelhead,
Mexican tree trimmers, already exhausted from
A workday that began at 6 AM.
And isn't it a pity?
A moment’s lack of concentration,
Distracted, perhaps, by *****-spirit former selves,
Sipping that last shot of afternoon tequila.
Cue Jay & the Americans:
“In a little café on the other side of the border.
She was giving me looks that made my mouth water.”
Distracted, a chainsaw arcs carnelian.
ReCue Jay et al: The chainsaw
“That belonged to JOSE!
Yes I knew. Yes I knew. Yes I knew.”
Severing his right shoulder deltoid,
A butchering to say the least,
Requiring, at least, three weeks “en casa.”
Tres semanas
Without Labor,
Consequently,
Without Capital,
No wage-slave salt lick.
“No dinero” for bread and butter.
Bread and butter?
A consummation devoutly wished for.
And dead certainly,
Better than Guns or Butter?
That Hobson’s choice.
No Padron LBJ are you,
Down along the Pedernales
Texas Hill Country, west of Austin.
Conjuring up both Guns and Butter?
You can’t have both.
Which is why we laboring folk
Always opt for the former,
Knowing instinctively that
A full-flush, spurting military-industrial complex
Means full employment and good times,
Except, of course, for the soldier boys.

“Y los sueños.”
Bourgeoisie entrechats.
I hear America still singing, faintly now.
A shrinking middle-class siren song--
Just a little something--
Some small baited hook--
Some chum bucket for Les Miserables;
Swarthy aspirants.
“Y los sueños.”
Our hunger of memory,
That once booming American 20th Century;
Horatio Alger:
Alive & kicking in the new millennium.

Behind the double oak doors at 71 Horatio Street, lower west side, there’s a pink striped hallway with a checkerboard floor. Up the stairs to the right there’s a corner bathroom with a drip in the whitewashed stucco ceiling that will start when you take a long shower upstairs. The window has rusty bars over it and looks out over a backyard made of brick, with potted plants. Past the corner bathroom there’s an apartment with long rooms and creamy walls. This was my house,, but across the apartment, past the corner bathroom, through the striped hallway, and down the stairs to the left was the entrance to my home.
**** and Liz Merryman to this day live in the bottom apartment at 71 Horatio Street, lower west side. Between each spindle on the carpeted staircase down is a wind up toy from ****’s antique collection. They still work, but my sister and I may be the only kids that he’s ever let touch them. Beneath the staircase is a jar of butterscotch that magically refills whenever someone takes one, or five, or sometimes even ten.. The living room in their house is where all the living goes on. The kitchen is in the living room, recipe’s hanging from the ceiling on bit’s of faded cardstock or stationary. The dining area is tucked between the spice jar and the bookcase,  a glass coffee table from which **** and Liz have eaten their way through thirty years of marriage. Out the sliding door is the brick backyard. If you sit on the faded stones and watch the unrestricted ivy wrapping around the potted fruit trees you can almost imagine you are in London, and that under the brick there is real soil not a subway station. I paddled my way through childhood in that backyard on 71 Horatio Street, lower west side, and if I cried when I left New York City, I cried for **** and Liz, and the apartment at the bottom of the stairs.

I prayed to God in the silent house,
In the quiet stillness, in came a mouse,
Yes, in scuttled Horatio the Mouse,
Sardonic God has sent me a mouse,
So, a little fur friend,
God's blessings don't end,
This mouse is way too hyperactive,
I ask, does it come from a mouse collective?
Is Horatio pregnant? think twice.
Shall I be plagued by furry mice?
I bought poison and mousetraps, too bad,
Is the mouse collective about to be sad?
Thus spake God, in the silent dark house,
"I shall send you a fur friend mouse?"

Every limerick follows a ratio
like, Alas, poor Yorick, Horatio
you've known them before
then after line four
they predicatably end with *******

I mean, it felt like I was a dead fish
Or something, left to rot out there in the sun,
Left there on purpose, you know, like it was
A threat—and Charles, it stinks—you know that?—
—the stench of all those old thoughts—
Yeah, thoughts…you know,
Like guppies maybe, sturgeon, or flounder.
You laugh? Why? Fish can think, can’t they? They flounder.
Suppose as we grow old the ancient thoughts
Appear as songs a child might sing—sotto voce.
Suppose they’re like the masks the actors wore
In some Commedia dell’Arte farce,
Or like the web a spider strings across
A road, hidden, dark, all subtle tension,
The strands still wet with the coagulate air…
Too wet to breath, Charles, way too wet.

There’s more. Suppose a face inside that mask
Looks back, looks out. Suppose the rings run circles round
The eyes, for fear. Suppose it’s an old face of yours,
Charles, smiling too, with all that sullen pride
You once were so capable of…so proud.
This is not the Lone Ranger, kimosabi.
Not Zorro either. Man is least himself
When he talks in his own person. So let’s
Try on that mask, shall we?
One for you and one for me.
Masks aplenty, masks abound,
Masks askance…
There, it fits. Welcome, Charles. Welcome back.

And welcome ghost.

…a ghost to prompt you in your mask, a ghost
off stage, and hoarse from shouting, diaphanous,
just like the real thing: for curiously,

at that moment while he is in you,
in situ, as it were, I will be left
au naturel—yeah, me—king for a day.
We were all meant to crawl away from the sea,
were we not?

…and I count the collective ghosts here too,
Charles…
… atavistic, frightened, unaneled,
and openly integumentary
(thus, open to the sea, but repellant
to air)
—owls, Orion, a star-scarred sky,
too cold to breath that night,
too cold not to, eh, Charles?
Like Don Quixote and Sancho Panza,
like Hamlet and Horatio,
out with the watch, in search
of ghosts and fathers…
ghosts and fathers, Charles.
You remember that?
Back then, when you used to listen to me
when I spoke. You did listen, then, Charles when
I said things, right?
All those old thoughts…
When I could sing…
Charles?

AHHHH HORATIO I HARDLY KNEW YA!

me stuck up in the air
somewhere in oh I don't know
'63 or '64

Nelson on his pillars
chatting to a sea gull
all Dublin spread before us

like a living map
shops like tiny boxes
people like full stops

166 or was it 168
steps for 6 old pennies
panting for the view

here be the Wicklow Mts.,
there the Mournes
seeing how a bird sees

over there there's rain
though there's no rain here
everything crystal clear

all this of course
before the statue got itself
blown up

just in time for
the anniversary of
the Easter Rising

Nelson nothing now
but a pile of rubble
brought down to street level

his head stolen
by persons unknown
a ballad where Nelson once stood

"Up went Nelson
in auld Dublin!"
me forever stuck up in the air

our love was a loaded gun
the beginning
and the end
your lips grazed mine
before swallowing me whole
one last bite
of the serpents apple
the sweetest martyrdom
and just like horatio
i'm aching
with the anticipation
of your ghost finding mine
waiting for sleep
just to hear your voice once more
each syllable
still the sweetest hallelujah
even if we're nothing
but the whisper of a memory.

The crazy weatherman
was sure he'd soon be
a billionaire with all that
climate change
jingling in his pockets.

D**id you know that when Ceres formed the moon, and hung it in the sky, it shone for you? That Apollo races his chariot across the skies because he wakes to see your face? When the seers see beauty in the bones and rocks, they see your eyes shine back at them. When the witch-men in the darkest, deepest parts of the jungle wish to bestow beauty on their callers, they invoke your name! When the Delphinewhi Oracle rocks her body, possessed with the wisdom of gods, she smiles savagely, and thanks Olympus for fashioning her in your image. When the roses blossom, and the honeysuckle blooms; when the violets show their beautiful dress, and the magnolia flaunts in the sun, they mimic you! When the lilies swim their graceful circles, and the snapdragon ushers forth it's sweet scent; when the lilac spreads its musk through my nostrils, or the dogwood dances in the wind, they devote their lives and beauty that it might stand in the shadow of your presence! Rocks crumble, and sands shift because they know you will need soft ground to tread upon. Thunders clap, and wild things wail because they envy any other that looks upon you but them! The stars themselves cast forth their light and burn themselves out because they know you will see their long-dead light, and appreciate their token of praise to you alone.

     Did you? Did you know that when Shakespeare wrote about his beautiful, mysterious woman, he thought of you? Did you know that when Horatio sung of woman's beauty, he had your face and figure upon his eyes? Did you know that when Beowulf slew the seven serpents, he fought them in your name? That Helen of Troy, and Cleopatra are your ancestors? That when Cockney resolved to fix the language he spoke, he did it in the endeavor to accurately describe your beauty?

     Alas, my littless, there is no man, nor beast, nor god that can comprehend your beauty. Save those you smile upon, all are lost in life, trying in vain to grasp the extent--the breadth and height and depth--of your immaculate form. Oh, if one could describe your smile, the earth would narry need the sun again! If man could describe the pools of color in thine eyes, man would be happy to look at a grey world to keep the memory of those prisms of light. If only one could touch you, caress the silk you wear for skin, he would be happy to never feel again....

Being a winner to me
Is not so much about
Winning the Battle of Waterloo
Neither is it about
Defeating the Axis Powers in WW2
Nor the heroism of Odysseus
After the fall of Troy
It is to me something simpler
But subtler
Like the equanimity of Horatio
In the Hamlet
And the fortitude of those who
Win unheard wars
Winners are those i'd say
Who in spite of losing believe
In the strength of their RESOLVE.

Ami, le temps n'est plus des guitares, des plumes,
Des créanciers, des duels hilares à propos
De rien, des cabarets, des pipes aux chapeaux
Et de cette gaîté banale où nous nous plûmes.

Voici venir, ami très tendre qui t'allumes
Au moindre dé pipé, mon doux briseur de pots,
Horatio, terreur et gloire des tripots,
Cher diseur de jurons à remplir cent volumes,

Voici venir parmi les brumes d'Elseneur
Quelque chose de moins plaisant, sur mon honneur,
Qu'Ophélia, l'enfant aimable qui s'étonne,

C'est le spectre, le spectre impérieux ! Sa main
Montre un but et son oeil éclaire et son pied tonne,
Hélas ! et nul moyen de remettre à demain !

There was a man named Ty
He was a Jack of all trades
But like any other average Joe
He had his own Achilles’ heel
In his mind Elvis had left the building
To say he was as happy as Larry
Is a big no way, José
It was elementary my dear Watson
What you have seen is not the real McCoy
Alas, poor Ty! You thought you knew him well, Horatio…
But now Daniel has come to judgement
And the only place Ty would be happy
Is down in Davy Jones’ locker…

Lover!
I hold onto the promise
That lingered on your lips
That even if we don’t make it
You will Always love me
Lover!

I miss the way you and I used to
Dance like we were
Tom Hiddleston & Tilda Swinton
In Only Lovers Left Alive
You made me feel alive
Like a bright red vinyl record
You had me spinning
Like a carousel
I’m feeling ambitious
Would you like to dance?
One last time
For old times’ sake
Our movements
An explosion, an expression
A supernova
Of Love

Lover!
I hold onto the promise
That lingered on your lips
That even if we don’t make it
You will Always love me
Lover!

I miss the way you and I used to
Talk about the most interesting things
The way Kenneth Branagh talks about Hamlet
Passionate and Adventurous
And I hate Shakespeare, but I’d recite every line
So that you never lose that passion
I’m feeling ambitious
Would you like to go watch Keegan Michael Key play Horatio?
Opposite Oscar Isaac.
I’ll be confused, but I’ll try to understand it all
To see that smile reach your eyes

Lover!
I hold onto the promise
That lingered on your lips
That even if we don’t make it
You will Always love me
Lover!

I’ve missed you
I’ve fought my demons
And through the frustration
Through the anguish
I found my balance

Lover! I will always love you

My Pixie friend
Was a rather plump little chap
Also had a bald patch
Which he hid beneath his cap

He was fluent in many languages
And could tell a good tale, or two
About his curious life in fairyland
And of his sojourn in London zoo

He road on the backs of Robins
As he had no wings to fly
Had had many a chat with fairies
As he gazed at the moon, up high

His name was Happy Horatio
He liked smiling like a clown
And told jokes, and played pranks
I never saw him frown

He loved to dance to music
And would dance the night away
Whilst quaffing mead aplenty
In the magical land of Fae

One day i asked Horatio
Where did his life begin
He said he remembers nothing
Other than once he was rather thin

But then he developed an appetite
For trifle, and chocolate sauce
Followed by strawberry jam, and spongecake
But got to heavy for his horse

I was sure he was much to small
To ride on a horses back
He told me it was a Shetland Pony
And that he simply had the knack

As he was able to talk in horse tongue
And asked it which way to go
His horse was a very good friend
But puzzled as it never seemed to grow

He then packed up his silken bags
Then slowly, and silently mooched around
"Ive got to now leave", said he
"Ive been summoned back to the underground"

So no more yackety yack
He smiled as he bid me farewell
"I'm returning to the land of Fae"
"Where i live in a dingly dell"

by Jemia

a PC gilded age is worse than a violent revolution
a Mormon **** is a library if they're lucky; not big
readers those LDS; I want to marry an Amish girl
before I die & come back a zombie & eat her brain
empty calories; no, if a vampyr bit an Amish girl ah
that would be one smart vampyr or the PC Horatio
Alger; no, a slacker Horatio Alger; a vampyr Horato
Alger; Amish vampyr girl becomes showgirl in vegas
a PC showgirl she doesn't show skin except ankle &
neck; the gloves come off so slow the lights go out;
this is like being on LSD & I'm not on anything; my
neighbor's hogging the madness but I've got all the
possession; in an HP Lovecraft Horatio Alger story