"Poor Yorick!",
His soul is saved.
Safe and sound,
In cold unbeing.

Cold unbeing,
For whom I am so hungry.
It's bitter tundra will fill me,
But my fire won't go out.

The burning won't stop,
And my ashes only gather.
There's something very wrong,
With a blistering winter.

Oh Yorick,
I envy.
Your sleep is undisturbed;
Where I am only tired.

You are bones,
And King Hamlet is a ghost.  
Floating like him and stagnant as you,
I cannot rest.

My sleep is disturbed.
Like the king, I can't find peace.
But like Yorick,
I am hollowed bones.

1:1
Stop. Who’s there? Tis clock strikes twelve,
brings thy Horatio to seek tis specter from hell,
In Denmark, something is rotting in thy state,
In Norway, unimprovèd mettle hot and full awaits,
Tis specter arrives to arouse confusion and fear,
but to treat it violence and majestic threat,
thy specter departs as the ****’s crow drew near,  
leaving the blows of malicious mockery to regret.
And for Hamlet may speak to the wandering soul,
Tis morning to Hamlet must the three a’go.

1:2
Claudius, thy Uncle, is crowned King a’last,
Gertrude, thy Mother, hastily marries a’fast.
With duties done, Laertes to France adieu,
Hamlet griefs thy Father’s death and thy Mother’s dine,
for once a Hyperion to now a satyr is Uncle to Father a’new,
is but now a little more than kin and less than kind.
Horatio brings poor Hamlet the fatherly news,
that King Hamlet’s specter is now a’loose.
The joyous Hamlet is but joyous to see,
the two month father, dead and decease,
but for he calls that foul deeds will foully arise.
He hurries to the heavenly site prior sunrise.

1:3
Laertes to Ophelia, a brother to sister, he warns,
that Hamlet is but a fiery lover and to love he sworn,
but to love now is but not the future,
for Hamlet’s fire may, thy mind unpure,
for his lovely vows are not to believe,
he is but a man of deception to conceive.
For when Laertes departs, Polonius rants,
that Hamlet’s love, Ophelia must recant
for his affections and fashions are but false wows,
for when blood burns, lends the tongue false vows.

1:4
Shrewdly the air bites, nipping and eager,
at Horatio and Hamlet thy specter nears.
To speak alone, it beckons so,
But Horatio to Hamlet speaks no,
for may it draw thy madness and strip thy reason,
but to thee specter does Hamlet go,
for thy life is but a’lacking living reason.
Aback do they hold him most,
but Hamlet, his sword he wields
Fate has brought him here, he feels
To hold him back is but to turn a’ghost

1:5
Revenge, does his heavenly father speak,
of tis horrid ****** of unnatural feat.
For the orchard’s snake, wears thy father’s crown
and ****** thy gracious Queen, whose now evil abound.
With dignity and devotion she loved me so,
but tis sinful ******, Hamlet, you must’a know!
Through my ears, a venomous potion he drew,
thy fair Uncle, Claudius that potion he brew.
Abed, my life he ended this night,
And to my crown and Queen took he a’flight.
For thy dearest father, revenge must thy draw
upon thy villainous head, Claudius must fall
And to thy sword thou dearest friends must swear,
to tell not the occasions of this night we bear,
And to madness Hamlet must falsely seek,
to discover the truth of horrid deed beneath.

2:1
Reynaldo to Laertes, Claudius a’spies,
to Paris, Reynaldo goes with a’plan devised,
to seek the situation of Laertes in foreign hoods,
with bait of falsehood takes this carp of truth.
Ophelia then enters, with her father she shares,
"Oh, father, father, I’ve just had such a scare!"
In her sewing room, it is Hamlet she sees,
with no hat, nor buttons, nor stable knees
For he stared and stared to let out a final sigh,
Love mad he may be, a’to King we must a’by.

2:2
With Rosencrantz and Guildenstern,
Directly or indirectly will Claudius learn,
of Hamlet’s matters they are to return.
Polonius, with news of Hamlet, he waits,
for thee Ambassador, to inform that Denmark Gates,
Are to be opened for young Fortinbra’s ****** defeat,
Polonius to Claudius, reveals thy madness roots,
For Hamlet is but love crazy for the fairest fruits,
of dearest Ophelia, who a letter he wrote,
Proclaims the fairness of her upon tis note.
And to test the truth, their confrontation, must’e spy,
Behind the arras to view thy love-mad side.
Is but our hastily marriage and his father’s death,
thy Mother, aware, are but the means of his mad breath.
Polonius then to Hamlet, speaks of witty words,
A fishmonger he calls, but one of two is misheard,
For when Polonius humbly takes a’leave,
He is but to take anything, but his life, shall he not receive.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, enter to Hamlet, they chat,
but Hamlet to quickly find the two are but a King’s ****,
Only sent to spy on a dearest friend,
And to human’s name do they offend,
Only to betray a dearest friend in honor of the King.
And so Players arrived at Denmark grounds,
for they, the best in the world, Polonius sounds.
And then for Jephthah, witty Hamlet chants,
the song of a foolish man who accidently grants,
the sacrifice of his beloved daughter.
Pyrrhus, do they perform for dearest Hamlet,
His sword is a’air, but a’air it sets,
for he hesitates to swing thy sword,
And with this, Hamlet hopes to store,
the strength to **** the horrid Lord.
Though he is but ashamed, for upon false emotions can Players act,
And in himself upon truths, strength can he not extract.
So a play for the King’s conscience does Hamlet devise,
for the heavenly ghost may be false in his advice.

3:1
To be or not to be; that is the question,
For Hamlet to be nobler or to a’take action,
Shall he withdraw with ****** self slaughter,
But shall’st never may see thy fairest daughter,
To die, but to sleep for a mere dream,
But in sleep shall fair or foul be unseen?
Now Polonius and Claudius awaits,
for Hamlet’s arranged meet with a’bait.
Hamlet to Ophelia, his love recants,
For honesty and beauty are but Someone’s grants,
Once did he love her, but now a’figured,
that women are but corrupt and impured,
For one’s honestly and beauty can and shall be taint,
For if God given thou one face, dear not another by paint.
For honestly and beauty has God falsely bred,
All but one, shall women *****.
All but one, shall women be nun.
Hence this marriage is over, and to a nunnery at once,

3:2
Let this mousetrap be named and this play a’set,
Shall capture thy horrid mouse or thy Uncle of Hamlet.
Polonius to Hamlet, the theater he knows,
For a Caesar death died he at thee Capitol.
Upon the lap of fair Ophelia, does Hamlet, lie,
Only to think of country matters and nothing (he implies).
And the play begins, with a prologue so brief,
Like a woman’s love, was Hamlet’s belief.
The King and Queen, a loving bond they share,
But the King by a mystic potion envenomed beware.
Thee action to ****, a murderous scene it was,
Leaving Claudius to regret the murderous act abuzz,
He arises to say: Let there be light! Let there be light!
And to the joy of Hamlet to see tis joyous sight,
For the words of thy heavenly father was but right.
Now shall the minute parts of truth ignite.
And to his Mother he shall speak daggers wield none,
for shall his tongue speak of the cruelties undone.

3:3
With Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, to England a’go,
Should insane Hamlet know not a hawk from a crow,
And behind the arras, Polonius will again spy,
the taxation of Hamlet and his Mother’s cry.
Polonius departs to spy upon the Mother and the Insane,
Only to leave Claudius to regret thy hideous Mark of Cain,
Shall he pray the Heavens to forgive him his actions,
For thy stripped thy Brother of life, throne, and attractions.
As Claudius is never to withdraw his stripped token,
Divine forgiveness shall never then be unspoken.
Hamlet can **** not his murderous Uncle in praying stance,
For a hideous monster shall not a’go Heaven by chance.

3:4
So behind the arras dearest Polonius stays,
to view the idle and wicked tongue arrays,
Thou’st the Queen, Thy Husband’s Brother’s wife!
But to hear a rat, shall Hamlet for a ducat its life.
Oh, but death ‘neath the arras, may it the King?
A horrid act? To **** and wear thy brother’s ring?
Oh, King it be not, but be a wretched, rash fool,
And now shall Hamlet tell thy Myth a’Ghoul.
For thy murderer has slain thy Heavenly mate,
And only now by natural law does he abate.
Upon these portraits shall ring a’clear,
That from thy Heavenly father is he nowhere near,
A murderer, a villain, a horrid fiend,
He is but a devilish murderer yield unclean,
No way can one drop from THIS to THAT,
And shall by this scene, the specterous soul attract,
Dear not be untenderly to thy Mother it speaks,
And shall this revenge soon awake its peak,
Hamlet appears a’mad to thy watching Mother,
but to his mother he warns, abed not another,
For two mouths should speak of none,
of this revenge that will soon be done.
And again, abed let not him ****** you so,
For now, apart to English must’e a’go.

4:1
Gertrude to Claudius, she continues to reveal,
Of Polonius’s ****** and his arras squeal,
"A rat! A rat!" A’mad Hamlet is,
Brandished, to rapier the life of his.
And now where’s thou Hamlet still?
To draw apart the body he hath killed.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern is but yet called again,
With discord and dismay, are they to seek that thou slain.

4:2
The two seek to Hamlet, for the body’s lair,
Compounded with dust now does it wear,
And a sponge, does Hamlet call them so,
for the King to squeeze them dry and thorough,
"A knavish speech sleeps in a foolish ear."
The body a’by a’King, but a’King, the body unnear.
And so, Hamlet to the King premiere.

4:3
And to Claudius does Hamlet call,
That Polonius now rests at a dining hall,
‘til a conference of worms devours him all
He shall eat not, but they eat so,
‘tis our fate despite status quo.
And upon the lobby stairs a corpse may lay,
One of dearest Polonius, slain to heaven or hell
Now to English death must Hamlet pay,
To one mother does he give two farewells.

4:4
With a Captain does Hamlet now proceed,
Who tells of young Fortinbras of Norway accede,
The Norway prince through Denmark he leads,
to seize a’minute ****** patch must’e receive.
A worthless land, must many die for one,
But true greatness acts not from fair reason,
But for the sake of the mind when honor is won.
And has Someone granted the reasoning mind,
For man to hesitate so cowardly inside,
For thy deed to act, must we rid the mind bind,
And act on instinct and be not wise.
And from the reasoning state must Hamlet now leave,
for honor he shall act, and his emotions he’ll believe.

4:5
False sanity is but false no more,
For fair Ophelia’s reason be not restore.
A’now sings of thy premature stone a’foot thy father’s grave,
and the departure of Hamlet for thy wed depraved.
Claudius is but to blame for thee rotting state,
For Polonius, a proper ceremony he not awaits,
For poor Ophelia, stripped from her reasonous state,
For Laertes aback from France, by thy father’s death, irate.
And Laertes enters, with thy support for king,
For the murderer, vengeful death shall he bring,
So Claudius to Laertes, says he is not to blame,
but thy father’s murderer is but another name.
And enters Ophelia, with figurative flowers to give,
But those of Faithfulness have ceased to live.
Alive are but for Thoughts, for Remembrance,
for Adultery, for Repentance, and for False Romance.
For his sister’s sanity is but another to blame,
Laertes, a vengeance mind, is but now aflame.

4:6
Horatio, a letter from Hamlet he receives,
that upon a Pirate ship has Hamlet board,
And that shall with speed would’st fly a’breathe.
Meet to hear the story Hamlet has a’stored.

4:7
Claudius to Laertes, he speak of innocence,
for by public appearance, the truth may bent,
For the public count loves Hamlet so,
And to thy fair Mother, Claudius a’beau.
Thy noble father lost and sister insane,
The murderous filth of Hamlet is to blame.
At this, a loyal messenger approaches,
to deliver the news that but Hamlet reproached,
An English death did Hamlet face not,
For now his destined death are they to plot,
Naked and alone, will he return to Denmark a’learn,
Of the honorable fence-match, he shall earn,
Against Laertes, whose fatherly love nor illusion,
Shall the death of Hamlet draw conclusion.
Even a’church will Hamlet, Laertes slay,
Death by no bounds, must Hamlet pay.
Envenomed rapier and wine shall prepare,
the faithful death of murderous Hamlet a’near.
Gertrude then enters with Ophelia’s news a’share,
For sorrows comes not in singles but in greater pairs,
Upon muddy death has Ophelia drowned,
for now another death has but profound,

5:1
Two Gravediggers upon one grave they create,
for to the death of thy Graveowner do they relate,
To die by self slaughter or to die by not,
the attention of passing Hamlet have they caught.
With Hamlet does one of thee two chat,
for once a woman, shall this grave be buried at,
A quick digger for Hamlet to his surprise,
Revealed that to England is mad Hamlet to advise.
For a corpse to live for eight or nine,
Thy dearest Yorick’s skull is to find,
Thy a corpse to date three and twenty,
Leaves Hamlet to recall thy memories a’plenty,
And to think Alexander, o’buried alike.
Here comes the King, Laertes and the Queen,
And upon the burial grounds is Ophelia seen,
His dearest sister does Laertes mourn,
But to Hamlet, her death, his heart a’torn.
Laertes to Hamlet, must’e not compare,
the death of one is a little more foul than fair,
For forty thousand brothers can sum not his love,
For the death of the fairest maiden beloved.
Claudius to Laertes, must Hamlet pay thy debt,
the plot of night prior shall’st not forget.

5:2
Hamlet to Horatio, does his truths trust,
Of thy wretched King and his unjust,
Of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern English death they meet,
With sacrifice and thy seal was thou to spare self defeat.
Now’st Osric enters to Hamlet a’chat,
For’st not hot, nor cold, nor sultry at.
And a’wish to court, with thy Laertes of excellence,
For Hamlet’s head does thee King expense.
With six French rapiers and poniards assign,
For by fate’s determination, shall this court incline,
For a special providence in the fall of a sparrow,
Can we do not, but abide by fate a’follow.
Trumpets and drums, now’st the fence begins,
For Hamlet and Laertes hand and hand therein.
Pardon he begs, Hamlet to thy brother,
For in him is but foil Hamlet yet another,
And so they fence for honor and fence for life,
Two of two leads Hamlet the strife.
The King, to Hamlet he drinks,
Tis pearl shall he the cup he sinks,
And unwounded for two, Hamlet prevails,
But Queen, the dearest Mother, so faithfully frail,
For she drinks thy cup of heavenly pearl,
For heavenly it be not, as thy malicious plot unfurl,
The cup! The cup! A poisonous potion,
Cause yet another by venomous commotion.
A distracting cause, for Hamlet to bear,
For Laertes envenomed blade must’e beware,
Now envenomed blood shall Hamlet shed,
Shall he hold thy rapier of Laertes instead,
to shed thy venomous blood of thy venomous mind,
For now thy murderous plot shall unwind,
At the honorable death of brother Laertes,
Shall the death of Claudius be a’seized.
The King’s to blame for the death of all,
And tis day shall he see his destined fall.
With thy venomous blade held a’hand,
Let the doors be locked and the evils banned,
For Hamlet wounds thy treacherous soul,
And shall horrid Claudius pay his destined toll,
For Hamlet forces to drink thy murderous potion,
And shall he too die of venomous commotion.
The death of four and tis ****** scene,
Shall Horatio tell to those unseen.
Shall he speak of murderous truths embark,
for Fortinbras shall now throne Denmark,
For in Fortinbras does his admiration lay,
For does Hamlet trust thou’st fiery ambitious way,
And tis now concludes thy Hamlet’s life,
For death and death thou’st all alike...

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.

Who would not laugh, if Lawrence, hired to grace
His costly canvas with each flattered face,
Abused his art, till Nature, with a blush,
Saw cits grow Centaurs underneath his brush?
Or, should some limner join, for show or sale,
A Maid of Honour to a Mermaid’s tail?
Or low Dubost—as once the world has seen—
Degrade God’s creatures in his graphic spleen?
Not all that forced politeness, which defends
Fools in their faults, could gag his grinning friends.
Believe me, Moschus, like that picture seems
The book which, sillier than a sick man’s dreams,
Displays a crowd of figures incomplete,
Poetic Nightmares, without head or feet.

  Poets and painters, as all artists know,
May shoot a little with a lengthened bow;
We claim this mutual mercy for our task,
And grant in turn the pardon which we ask;
But make not monsters spring from gentle dams—
Birds breed not vipers, tigers nurse not lambs.

  A laboured, long Exordium, sometimes tends
(Like patriot speeches) but to paltry ends;
And nonsense in a lofty note goes down,
As Pertness passes with a legal gown:
Thus many a Bard describes in pompous strain
The clear brook babbling through the goodly plain:
The groves of Granta, and her Gothic halls,
King’s Coll-Cam’s stream-stained windows, and old walls:
Or, in adventurous numbers, neatly aims
To paint a rainbow, or the river Thames.

  You sketch a tree, and so perhaps may shine—
But daub a shipwreck like an alehouse sign;
You plan a vase—it dwindles to a ***;
Then glide down Grub-street—fasting and forgot:
Laughed into Lethe by some quaint Review,
Whose wit is never troublesome till—true.

In fine, to whatsoever you aspire,
Let it at least be simple and entire.

  The greater portion of the rhyming tribe
(Give ear, my friend, for thou hast been a scribe)
Are led astray by some peculiar lure.
I labour to be brief—become obscure;
One falls while following Elegance too fast;
Another soars, inflated with Bombast;
Too low a third crawls on, afraid to fly,
He spins his subject to Satiety;
Absurdly varying, he at last engraves
Fish in the woods, and boars beneath the waves!

  Unless your care’s exact, your judgment nice,
The flight from Folly leads but into Vice;
None are complete, all wanting in some part,
Like certain tailors, limited in art.
For galligaskins Slowshears is your man
But coats must claim another artisan.
Now this to me, I own, seems much the same
As Vulcan’s feet to bear Apollo’s frame;
Or, with a fair complexion, to expose
Black eyes, black ringlets, but—a bottle nose!

  Dear Authors! suit your topics to your strength,
And ponder well your subject, and its length;
Nor lift your load, before you’re quite aware
What weight your shoulders will, or will not, bear.
But lucid Order, and Wit’s siren voice,
Await the Poet, skilful in his choice;
With native Eloquence he soars along,
Grace in his thoughts, and Music in his song.

  Let Judgment teach him wisely to combine
With future parts the now omitted line:
This shall the Author choose, or that reject,
Precise in style, and cautious to select;
Nor slight applause will candid pens afford
To him who furnishes a wanting word.
Then fear not, if ’tis needful, to produce
Some term unknown, or obsolete in use,
(As Pitt has furnished us a word or two,
Which Lexicographers declined to do;)
So you indeed, with care,—(but be content
To take this license rarely)—may invent.
New words find credit in these latter days,
If neatly grafted on a Gallic phrase;
What Chaucer, Spenser did, we scarce refuse
To Dryden’s or to Pope’s maturer Muse.
If you can add a little, say why not,
As well as William Pitt, and Walter Scott?
Since they, by force of rhyme and force of lungs,
Enriched our Island’s ill-united tongues;
’Tis then—and shall be—lawful to present
Reform in writing, as in Parliament.

  As forests shed their foliage by degrees,
So fade expressions which in season please;
And we and ours, alas! are due to Fate,
And works and words but dwindle to a date.
Though as a Monarch nods, and Commerce calls,
Impetuous rivers stagnate in canals;
Though swamps subdued, and marshes drained, sustain
The heavy ploughshare and the yellow grain,
And rising ports along the busy shore
Protect the vessel from old Ocean’s roar,
All, all, must perish; but, surviving last,
The love of Letters half preserves the past.
True, some decay, yet not a few revive;
Though those shall sink, which now appear to thrive,
As Custom arbitrates, whose shifting sway
Our life and language must alike obey.

  The immortal wars which Gods and Angels wage,
Are they not shown in Milton’s sacred page?
His strain will teach what numbers best belong
To themes celestial told in Epic song.

  The slow, sad stanza will correctly paint
The Lover’s anguish, or the Friend’s complaint.
But which deserves the Laurel—Rhyme or Blank?
Which holds on Helicon the higher rank?
Let squabbling critics by themselves dispute
This point, as puzzling as a Chancery suit.

  Satiric rhyme first sprang from selfish spleen.
You doubt—see Dryden, Pope, St. Patrick’s Dean.
Blank verse is now, with one consent, allied
To Tragedy, and rarely quits her side.
Though mad Almanzor rhymed in Dryden’s days,
No sing-song Hero rants in modern plays;
Whilst modest Comedy her verse foregoes
For jest and ‘pun’ in very middling prose.
Not that our Bens or Beaumonts show the worse,
Or lose one point, because they wrote in verse.
But so Thalia pleases to appear,
Poor ******! ****** some twenty times a year!

Whate’er the scene, let this advice have weight:—
Adapt your language to your Hero’s state.
At times Melpomene forgets to groan,
And brisk Thalia takes a serious tone;
Nor unregarded will the act pass by
Where angry Townly “lifts his voice on high.”
Again, our Shakespeare limits verse to Kings,
When common prose will serve for common things;
And lively Hal resigns heroic ire,—
To “hollaing Hotspur” and his sceptred sire.

  ’Tis not enough, ye Bards, with all your art,
To polish poems; they must touch the heart:
Where’er the scene be laid, whate’er the song,
Still let it bear the hearer’s soul along;
Command your audience or to smile or weep,
Whiche’er may please you—anything but sleep.
The Poet claims our tears; but, by his leave,
Before I shed them, let me see ‘him’ grieve.

  If banished Romeo feigned nor sigh nor tear,
Lulled by his languor, I could sleep or sneer.
Sad words, no doubt, become a serious face,
And men look angry in the proper place.
At double meanings folks seem wondrous sly,
And Sentiment prescribes a pensive eye;
For Nature formed at first the inward man,
And actors copy Nature—when they can.
She bids the beating heart with rapture bound,
Raised to the Stars, or levelled with the ground;
And for Expression’s aid, ’tis said, or sung,
She gave our mind’s interpreter—the tongue,
Who, worn with use, of late would fain dispense
(At least in theatres) with common sense;
O’erwhelm with sound the Boxes, Gallery, Pit,
And raise a laugh with anything—but Wit.

  To skilful writers it will much import,
Whence spring their scenes, from common life or Court;
Whether they seek applause by smile or tear,
To draw a Lying Valet, or a Lear,
A sage, or rakish youngster wild from school,
A wandering Peregrine, or plain John Bull;
All persons please when Nature’s voice prevails,
Scottish or Irish, born in Wilts or Wales.

  Or follow common fame, or forge a plot;
Who cares if mimic heroes lived or not!
One precept serves to regulate the scene:
Make it appear as if it might have been.

  If some Drawcansir you aspire to draw,
Present him raving, and above all law:
If female furies in your scheme are planned,
Macbeth’s fierce dame is ready to your hand;
For tears and treachery, for good and evil,
Constance, King Richard, Hamlet, and the Devil!
But if a new design you dare essay,
And freely wander from the beaten way,
True to your characters, till all be past,
Preserve consistency from first to last.

  Tis hard to venture where our betters fail,
Or lend fresh interest to a twice-told tale;
And yet, perchance,’tis wiser to prefer
A hackneyed plot, than choose a new, and err;
Yet copy not too closely, but record,
More justly, thought for thought than word for word;
Nor trace your Prototype through narrow ways,
But only follow where he merits praise.

  For you, young Bard! whom luckless fate may lead
To tremble on the nod of all who read,
Ere your first score of cantos Time unrolls,
Beware—for God’s sake, don’t begin like Bowles!
“Awake a louder and a loftier strain,”—
And pray, what follows from his boiling brain?—
He sinks to Southey’s level in a trice,
Whose Epic Mountains never fail in mice!
Not so of yore awoke your mighty Sire
The tempered warblings of his master-lyre;
Soft as the gentler breathing of the lute,
“Of Man’s first disobedience and the fruit”
He speaks, but, as his subject swells along,
Earth, Heaven, and Hades echo with the song.”
Still to the “midst of things” he hastens on,
As if we witnessed all already done;
Leaves on his path whatever seems too mean
To raise the subject, or adorn the scene;
Gives, as each page improves upon the sight,
Not smoke from brightness, but from darkness—light;
And truth and fiction with such art compounds,
We know not where to fix their several bounds.

  If you would please the Public, deign to hear
What soothes the many-headed monster’s ear:
If your heart triumph when the hands of all
Applaud in thunder at the curtain’s fall,
Deserve those plaudits—study Nature’s page,
And sketch the striking traits of every age;
While varying Man and varying years unfold
Life’s little tale, so oft, so vainly told;
Observe his simple childhood’s dawning days,
His pranks, his prate, his playmates, and his plays:
Till time at length the mannish tyro weans,
And prurient vice outstrips his tardy teens!

  Behold him Freshman! forced no more to groan
O’er Virgil’s devilish verses and his own;
Prayers are too tedious, Lectures too abstruse,
He flies from Tavell’s frown to “Fordham’s Mews;”
(Unlucky Tavell! doomed to daily cares
By pugilistic pupils, and by bears,)
Fines, Tutors, tasks, Conventions threat in vain,
Before hounds, hunters, and Newmarket Plain.
Rough with his elders, with his equals rash,
Civil to sharpers, prodigal of cash;
Constant to nought—save hazard and a *****,
Yet cursing both—for both have made him sore:
Unread (unless since books beguile disease,
The P——x becomes his passage to Degrees);
Fooled, pillaged, dunned, he wastes his terms away,
And unexpelled, perhaps, retires M.A.;
Master of Arts! as hells and clubs proclaim,
Where scarce a blackleg bears a brighter name!

  Launched into life, extinct his early fire,
He apes the selfish prudence of his Sire;
Marries for money, chooses friends for rank,
Buys land, and shrewdly trusts not to the Bank;
Sits in the Senate; gets a son and heir;
Sends him to Harrow—for himself was there.
Mute, though he votes, unless when called to cheer,
His son’s so sharp—he’ll see the dog a Peer!

  Manhood declines—Age palsies every limb;
He quits the scene—or else the scene quits him;
Scrapes wealth, o’er each departing penny grieves,
And Avarice seizes all Ambition leaves;
Counts cent per cent, and smiles, or vainly frets,
O’er hoards diminished by young Hopeful’s debts;
Weighs well and wisely what to sell or buy,
Complete in all life’s lessons—but to die;
Peevish and spiteful, doting, hard to please,
Commending every time, save times like these;
Crazed, querulous, forsaken, half forgot,
Expires unwept—is buried—Let him rot!

  But from the Drama let me not digress,
Nor spare my precepts, though they please you less.
Though Woman weep, and hardest hearts are stirred,
When what is done is rather seen than heard,
Yet many deeds preserved in History’s page
Are better told than acted on the stage;
The ear sustains what shocks the timid eye,
And Horror thus subsides to Sympathy,
True Briton all beside, I here am French—
Bloodshed ’tis surely better to retrench:
The gladiatorial gore we teach to flow
In tragic scenes disgusts though but in show;
We hate the carnage while we see the trick,
And find small sympathy in being sick.
Not on the stage the regicide Macbeth
Appals an audience with a Monarch’s death;
To gaze when sable Hubert threats to sear
Young Arthur’s eyes, can ours or Nature bear?
A haltered heroine Johnson sought to slay—
We saved Irene, but half ****** the play,
And (Heaven be praised!) our tolerating times
Stint Metamorphoses to Pantomimes;
And Lewis’ self, with all his sprites, would quake
To change Earl Osmond’s ***** to a snake!
Because, in scenes exciting joy or grief,
We loathe the action which exceeds belief:
And yet, God knows! what may not authors do,
Whose Postscripts prate of dyeing “heroines blue”?

  Above all things, Dan Poet, if you can,
Eke out your acts, I pray, with mortal man,
Nor call a ghost, unless some cursed scrape
Must open ten trap-doors for your escape.
Of all the monstrous things I’d fain forbid,
I loathe an Opera worse than Dennis did;
Where good and evil persons, right or wrong,
Rage, love, and aught but moralise—in song.
Hail, last memorial of our foreign friends,
Which Gaul allows, and still Hesperia lends!
Napoleon’s edicts no embargo lay
On ******—spies—singers—wisely shipped away.
Our giant Capital, whose squares are spread
Where rustics earned, and now may beg, their bread,
In all iniquity is grown so nice,
It scorns amusements which are not of price.
Hence the pert shopkeeper, whose throbbing ear
Aches with orchestras which he pays to hear,
Whom shame, not sympathy, forbids to snore,
His anguish doubling by his own “encore;”
Squeezed in “Fop’s Alley,” jostled by the beaux,
Teased with his hat, and trembling for his toes;
Scarce wrestles through the night, nor tastes of ease,
Till the dropped curtain gives a glad release:
Why this, and more, he suffers—can ye guess?—
Because it costs him dear, and makes him dress!

  So prosper eunuchs from Etruscan schools;
Give us but fiddlers, and they’re sure of fools!
Ere scenes were played by many a reverend clerk,
(What harm, if David danced before the ark?)
In Christmas revels, simple country folks
Were pleased with morrice-mumm’ry and coarse jokes.
Improving years, with things no longer known,
Produced blithe Punch and merry Madame Joan,
Who still frisk on with feats so lewdly low,
’Tis strange Benvolio suffers such a show;
Suppressing peer! to whom each vice gives place,
Oaths, boxing, begging—all, save rout and race.

  Farce followed Comedy, and reached her prime,
In ever-laughing Foote’s fantastic time:
Mad wag! who pardoned none, nor spared the best,
And turned some very serious things to jest.
Nor Church nor State escaped his public sneers,
Arms nor the Gown—Priests—Lawyers—Volunteers:
“Alas, poor Yorick!” now for ever mute!
Whoever loves a laugh must sigh for Foote.

  We smile, perforce, when histrionic scenes
Ape the swoln dialogue of Kings and Queens,
When “Crononhotonthologos must die,”
And Arthur struts in mimic majesty.

  Moschus! with whom once more I hope to sit,
And smile at folly, if we can’t at wit;
Yes, Friend! for thee I’ll quit my cynic cell,
And bear Swift’s motto, “Vive la bagatelle!”
Which charmed our days in each ægean clime,
As oft at home, with revelry and rhyme.
Then may Euphrosyne, who sped the past,
Soothe thy Life’s scenes, nor leave thee in the last;
But find in thine—like pagan Plato’s bed,
Some merry Manuscript of Mimes, when dead.

  Now to the Drama let us bend our eyes,
Where fettered by whig Walpole low she lies;
Corruption foiled her, for she feared her glance;
Decorum left her for an Opera dance!
Yet Chesterfield, whose polished pen inveighs
‘Gainst laughter, fought for freedom to our Plays;
Unchecked by Megrims of patrician brains,
And damning Dulness of Lord Chamberlains.
Repeal that act! again let Humour roam
Wild o’er the stage—we’ve time for tears at home;
Let Archer plant the horns on Sullen’s brows,
And Estifania gull her “Copper” spouse;
The moral’s scant—but that may be excused,
Men go not to be lectured, but amused.
He whom our plays dispose to Good or Ill
Must wear a head in want of Willis’ skill;
Aye, but Macheath’s examp

We knew him well
his jest
most excellent
alas, not infinite

Where be your gibes now?
Your gambols? Your songs?
Your flashes of merriment,
that were wont
to set the table on a roar? (Hamlet, V.i)

We laughed,
we cried
amused and touched

Borne on your back,
anguish unspoken

Poor Yorick.

r ~ 8/12/14

Meteoric Buick
Slick *****
Frantic frenetic
Majestic kick
Chick shtick
Shashlik

Nicotinic stick
Lick flick
Hermeneutic heretic
Magnetic rhetoric
Hick logic
Strategic

Plastic music
Tick click
Bucolic Bardic
Peptic druidic
Rustic emetic
Sceptic

Polymeric quirk
Sick trick
Turmeric trimeric
Septic *****
Wick crick
Derrick

Foot meets the metal of a cold shovel
with a sun beaming down
booted foot pushes the *****
into the soft and rooty ground

one mound of dirt
sweat forms above the brow
two mounds of dirt
salty bead slithers down
three mounds of dirt
tuned into the sounds
four mounds of dirt
birds chirp all around

stopped by a thick root
extra force must be used
give that shovel a pogo of boots
and we are at the fifth mound

six and seven are easy
as the hole starts to round
eight nine ten eleven twelve
a tomb has been found

carried your sheet covered corpse
laid you in the hole
cover you with what was uncovered
creating a man made knoll

Six years of memories
laid underneath this red dirt
many years missing
that time gone subvert

Photograph by Michael J. Sullivan, 2010*

Listen up, you little *****, and let me
teach you a thing or two.  See this skull here,
poised and serene?  How do you know it’s poised?
It’s dead, for Christ’s sake! The only thing it’s
poised on in the edge of this stump—“ye olde
dead tree” holding “ye old dead head.”  He had
a name, you know—Yorick—I didn’t make
that up. I knew him; good friend of my mum’s.
     This sword here could have been what ran him through,
you know.  Coulda got him straight through the gut,
and you’re all sittin’ here admiring its
craftwork.  It’s the fancy hilt, isn’t it,
the bright metal chasing its own tail in
golden loops.  Warm yellow over cold steel,
that’s what you people like—spectacle, shine—
not dust and history, like Yorick over here.
     You don’t mind if I smoke, do you?  Only
thing these candles are good for, really.  They’re
tallow—stinking, smoky fat made by Jen
on her weekends off.  She doesn’t know much
about candles, but her *****’s Special
Draft is the best mead made for this dung heap.
     Anyway, I gotta ****.  Leave Yorick
with your tips, and remember: what glitters
here isn’t gold, just paint over old age.

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

...of the world."



(sonnet #MMMMMMMDCCCV)


"Alas, poor Yorick!"  echoes down the tale
O' centries since that Tristram Shandy thence
Was published, and familiar too, though whence
I ne'er could say 'til now, in sheer betrayl--
Love-sick being cause for seeking to avail
Me of some cure from false hopes' keen pretense--
To succour me at THAT font was for sense
Jist what the Doctor ordered:  pretty bail.
Now Corp'ral Trim reads Yorick's sermon fer
Ole Shandy's intrest ere that Tristram's through
The birth canal, I've highr ground as it were.
Not cuz the antique novel is a crew
Of nonsense.  No.  It sets off this e'er poor
'Scuse for "real'ty"...IF I can breathe too.

23Mar19a

it is so easy to **** me unknown brother
carved Samaritan image
do yourself a favor I’m an undecided blotch of color
indigo reaching for purple
shut at once the book you read from
and I’ll become a butterfly with my wings crucified
on two pages

~~~
maybe because of the need to forget
I see death as a hindrance on the wheel of torture
a camphorated ointment for nervous fibers ends
I’m closer today to the tree for hanging the noose
from which God forbid you to taste
look vanitas vanitatum
Yorick’s head lies on your plate when you receive your alms
the candle the baked apple and the wheat porridge helping

~~~
I stand up facing the wall
my voice isn’t yet untied
I wonder what is stronger and if the heart tips the scales
my achy breaky heart
on the balance between life and death
there are a few extra grams of soul
we will need very tiny jewellery weights
psalm 103
Fibonacci’s series the golden ratio

~~~
look my child the soft carpet
my warm body upon which you step this sacred day
my soles are thin they stick to the red clay
I turn upon the potter’s wheel
my everlasting mentioning
like I was that’s how I’ll stay
a crumb of Eucharist bread on the lips
the first and the last

Oh Yorick, you little crunchy skull, tell me, baby,
answer all the questions in "Blowing in the Wind"
on pacifism and what-is/how-to-be a man, please

and then play the piano while I lie on the lid of it
and let's sing the blues about being and nonbeing
and get drunk on scotch, as old as little young me

and the places, faces, and names we've forgotten
all while my rusty-stringed guitar gently weeps,

and geese run in droves over my grave, shivering
up and down my spine as my ears just burn alive

with the sword of death on a frazzled dried string
hangs over our heads to remind us we are young

we must not waste a second of life with "frivolity"

we are young, dead, all roguish,
we are real, but not broken--yet!

Hidden souls
Inprinted on the wall
Within a dragons den
No smoke
Or fire
Or gold
Just skulls
Now hanging
Empty eyes glare
At life
No longer there

by Jemia

Let the curse be invoked, let ghosts gibber and moan!
It appears the Bard’s skull is out and on loan.
Although long protected by a malediction dread,
It turns out Shakespeare’s body is missing his head.
Some Victorian fans thought it quite the lark
to make off with his skull; a deed done in the dark.
Alas poor Shakespeare whose works I know well
Your skull now a paperweight where miscreants dwell.
Like Crassus the Roman, you serve as a prop
And your moldering bones are missing their top.
If Poor Yorick had heirs they are under suspicion;
Subject them to torture to obtain their confession.

How lucky I must be
To have been born when I was
The middle of autumn,
A score ago
To have grown up as I did
Playing with stick swords
And scraping with villains only imagined
To have been fighting for love
Before the term was defined

How lucky
That I didn’t grow up decades ago
Before you were so much
Or even had such
A thought
I was blessed I didn’t develop ideas
Only to rust sleepily in a corner
While you gasped for your first breath

And how fortunate
That in this so-called tragedy
I was not cast as Yorick, the foolish
To think I was already dead

How lucky I must be
To have grown up so fast
To be mature enough to be burdened
By your memory
How serendipitous, auspicious
That I have the strength
To bear the weight
When you could not

How lucky I must be
To be able
To live
With a shadow over my head
And “love” written on my wrist

The Nighttime Skies have altered, altering us…

The nightly showing of twinkling heavens, fulsome,
brimming, as can now be seen but only in a planetarium
program, always was a delight to our ******* citified  
visitors, who received this free reminder of Earth’s  
non-centric role in the universe, happily, for it jived
senses with common sensibility, confirming an assumptive
reality with yes! my-eyes-can-see-it proofs, that many city
folk only hope & assume are yet true someplace  else
‘out there.’

Night light pollution, a life feature just assumed as
a costless cost of doing business of our modern
population distribution, has horrendous mental
consequences for a generation of me-me-me
young ones, who lack the lessons in real awe,
not by way of a video game, but by never having seen a
Milky Way,
constellations and planets
that were so necessary to
critical cortical thinking p,
human beliefs,
re the totality of
existence a mere
two hundred or
so years ago.

The star’s disappearance for so much of our population,
reenforces the notion of our own centricity, get it?

A world centered on the city.

The truer star studded sky knows not
of gender neutrality,
racial disharmony,
through a
“I am not the universe “ perspective,
for in this large than life realer than real
exterior externality,
which why, by the by,
is mega black and white duopoly,
makes who is bigger no better than smaller,
for all but magnified speckles
all now more of a minor
irrelevant relativity.

When all the worlds are watching, not just the world, but
a Universe of unknown worlds are judging, studying us,
and maybe our lives are mighty picayune,
but amore humbled and yet precious, do we not need to be
always on our best behavior?

the fact is that we who are but 80 miles from nyc’s borderline can no longer sky-testify, be reminded of our planetary’s liveliness- uniqueness and our proper place on the largest tapestry
of the always, of the forever, of the
majesty and harmonious coexistence.

I am naive and a proper fool, and I do not know if it is the new smoking of the planet, spread of the seemingly innocuous
city boundaries encroaching on our rural existence, or a new physicality condition that makes our nights a pungent blackened cloud, and that so many can not say of the awesomeness
mystery above us, and think
with humility
our destiny,
our alignment
                         “is in the star’s.”

Alas poor Yorick, even your creator, the poet William Shakespeare, who understood human frailties too well, conceded that,

”it is not in the stars to hold our destiny, but in ourselves.”

But the again,
he could nightly gaze
upon them,
and we cannot!

He also conceded, to attempt to balance
the imbalances of our
visual scales,
and magnetic moral compasses,
writing,

indeed!

”there are more things in heaven and earth*”

You are the light that yonder window breaks.
Like Yorick I knew you well.
You are the Demetrius to my Helena.
The Romeo to my Rosaline.
My unrequited love.

I will
write love on her arms
so many and so deep
that it courses through her veins
and into her
heart.

I will
write love on her arms
so she can stop hurting
even though she loves the pain
which is the
hardest part.

I will not
stop loving her,
even if she lets me go,
because through all of this
I'll let her know she is loved
by everyone she knows.

I will not
abandon her in her darkest times of need
I will not however
be her knight in shining armor
gallant and proud
on a strong new steed.

She will not know that
this lowly peasant
comes from a nothing more
than a small house
with nothing to call my own.
Where the hardest part for me
was finding a different dial up phone.

So she walks,
so she talks
and seems okay,
but as her friend
who loves her so,
I want her to walk away.

From the pain
the sadness,
the misery,
I want her to walk on her own,
and far away from me.

I am her crutch,
but I am not her life,
and alas poor Yorick,
she is not to be my lovely wife.

But still I shall
keep her lifted up, safe from all harms
if only for a chance
to write love
all on her
arms.

Vous m'avez demandé quelques vers sur « Amour ».

Ce mien livre, d'émoi cruel et de détresse,

Déjà **** dans mon Œuvre étrange qui se presse

Et dévale, flot plus amer de jour en jour.


Qu'en dire, sinon : « Poor Yorick ! » ou mieux « poor

Lelian ! » et pauvre âme à tout faire, faiblesse,

Mollesse par des fois et caresse et paresse,

Ou tout à coup partie en guerre comme pour


Tout casser d'un passé si pur, si chastement

Ordonné par la beauté des calmes pensées.

Et pour damner tant d'heures en Dieu dépensées.


Puis il revient, mon Œuvre, las d'un tel ahan,

Pénitent, et tombant à genoux mains dressées...

Priez avec et pour le pauvre Lelian !

.well, when i was 6 or 7, i used to play dolls with my neighbor's daughter... perhaps we can fiddle around with this observation, as much as genital-less Ken & Barbie allowed us, to play driving a car, or house; ****... the Yorick cliche... 'ere comes the 'amlet synonym!

i remember this one insult from a girl,
why do your people have
a flattened occipital /
  parietal bone structure?
  (but primarily the occipital)...
so that begot thinking about this
years later... the whole Darwinism story
of - out of Africa...
huh...           so why is it that Asians
and Africans do not have a protruding
nasal bone artifact?
you know...
as noses go... Jews and their Roman
noses...
   how come...
    the Asiatic and African noses...
they're really flat at the bottom,
enlarged even...
like the phallus, and the ***...
perfect for running, and sinking...
so how come you don't have enough
nasal bone,
which is probably why there's
the case for enlarged nostrils?
huh?
         how's that?
                 what?! ping-pong!
yeah... Asians and Africans...
a bit... flat... up top when it comes
to the nose structure...
very little cartilage on the up end
of the nose... plenty down below...
   so why is it... that i come from
an ethnicity where my parietal /
occipital bone structures are somehow
flattened, but whereas the Asians
(south eastern) and the Africans
have a less protruding nasal bone?
basically flat nose on top,
with a black girl's ***'s worth around
the nostril?!
                                        why is that?!

The imaginative life is fun
But often doesn't touch

Alas, poor Yorick, alas!
Alas! I think too much

I wish that she would hold me
But her caresses for another

So I sleep alone
Naked under covers

          No lovers.

since no song unto poland, where sing and to whom if not scotland?! for where else my home?! but now i, in abandonment of freedom nearly grasped, in the white shadow of william's tower: residing in the nearing end of london - so that fox and crow might know my name and fellowship of un-abandoned gemini, each thought has become a memory for each rhapsody of an imagine you carved into me - yet why the madness of a Finnish lass wandering the Cow Gate street looking for a boyfriend, and why not a girl of firm root to teach me to stay put?*

i count my life a life
before i succumbed
to this ****-wit platform
of the alt. t.v.,
and there my blank canvas
was black, rather than this
white.. there i merged
nimble crab with hardy
nimble oyster... and there
the waves, and there scotland,
a dream beyond irish catholicism
within england of being schooled...
and there scotland!
o dream, o dreams! let me venture
back there! but i know you
will refuse me the grant of such
a wish... then let us ease heart an hearts
with a constant striving for labour,
and whether labour acknowledged
or disavowed as important
so that the supposedly noble-chaste
can battle with opinions rather than
with an eager man's axe to topple them!
am i too to not dream of a higher woman
keeping leverage of the women before
me watching in earnest a safe home
provided by a mule or an idiot or a banker?
but i rather dream, than be among such
rot of the oaken bark with stench
than makes me all the more eager to depart!
O Scotland! each night i claw off my face
in hope of seeing yorick, my youthful dream
of a song i kept to keep me youthful in memory,
and that platter of haggis, neeps and tatties
with a sucker of whiskey drenching the meats.

By: Cedric  McClester,

We’re caught up in the mystery
Of who it’s gonna be
Nevertheless if I had to guess
Guess we’ll just have to see
But it’s down to a short list
So the answer some insist
To which they give their voice
They hope will be the choice

So it makes perfect sense
That we’re caught up in suspense
And though it is intense
It will come out in the rinse

Like Shakespeare’s line,“Poor Yorick.”
The choice will be historic
Depending upon how it goes
Some will be euphoric
But only one person knows
Ain’t that usually how it goes
The one who does the choosing
Knows who’s winning or losing

So it makes perfect sense
That we’re caught up in suspense
And though it is intense
It will come out in the rinse

And if you’re asking me
The biggest mystery might be
What I’m talking about
Cuz there’s an element of doubt

So it makes perfect sense
That we’re caught up in suspense
And though it is intense
It will come out in the rinse

As the betting folks make bets
And the losers have regrets
To be quite merciful
It’s nothing personal
You can take it from me
It’s only business don’t cha see
Don’t read more into it
Than happenstance or mother wit

So it makes perfect sense
That we’re caught up in suspense
And though it is intense
It will come out in the rinse





Cedric McClester, Copyright © 2016.  All rights reserved.

This sacred sadness of the clouds
painted on the window pane.
This end of a century
splashed all over the walls!
The evening flowing down streets like heavy water...

...Who opened these windows in our foreheads,
who built these
secondary doors in our chests?
I walk inside me as if in a diseased season.
I hear mother’s voice from beyond the dark wall:
Why are you here,
why have you come back?
Go, out with you while there is still time.

I hear my elder brother’s voice as if muffled by water:
Get out of this light as soon as you can
and leave me alone
to breathe in my own shadow...

Whose faces are preserved here,
in this putrid evening light?
What season are a thousand
cut-off heads waiting for?
Whose arms will be sown in the field,
whose teeth will grow in the grass?

I walk across myself as if I were some strange season.
With Yorick’s skull in my hands, I wonder:
If I have reaped
where and what was it I reaped?
And if I harvest, when, whom am I harvesting?

**Nichita Danilov

i can't believe me luck bound by today, first the rain the sunshine & the double rainbow, then a thai green curry with honey-glazed chicken (lemongrass? of course, coconut milk? a double of course); but then? my, my, my! an offer at the supermarket, a litre of jack daniels, slashed from 30 quid down to 18 quid, as i spoke to the cashier (we're on friendly terms): she inquired what's with the shy grunt-laughter under your nose? you've seen the deal? i'd be mad not to. i know, i bought a few bottles myself.

and then the *pièce de résistance:
finally! a night with the moon making
orbit in the night sky!

    i've sat through countless moonless
nights, and it's more lonely sometimes
than not being able to talk to someone -
then again: a blank page is always
the most decent of all decent listeners,
better than any psychologist,
           i can tell you that much;

and it's less intrusive on behalf of not
only yourself, but on behalf of others,
to not bother making videos,
i'm starting to find them: more and more
annoying, esp. when the video making
implodes, and rarely manages to
scratch any other surface, other than its
own: cry wolf! and cried they did -
    and the wolf came, and the three little
piglets never managed to build that
third house of bricks.

and as i saw the moon walking back from
the supermarket, i watched
this celestial biscuit with its acne ridden
face from meteor exposure freeze and shrink...
they say you can see the most glorious
sunset in the moon,
  as it freezes, from gingerbread,
    through to autumnal orange,
  through to phoenix orange,
  till the point where it freezes,
     and turn into a colour of the perfect
mawler,
         or at least: the skull white of yorick.

back to the jack, and i don't know why,
why is it, that every single time i open a bottle
of bourbon, my eyes flash freeze
and engage in scenes from a brothel
where the bulgarian midwives work?
the eerie lightning, the intimidating
first "hurdle": a man sitting alone
with about a dozen of them, asking for
water, before choosing one?
  
  brothels & bourbon...
the two perfumes fuse, along with soap,
and body cream, and genital juices,
and sweat...
   i don't know how to say it,
but *** with prostitutes is so, so much more
(different) than on a casual date -
you can't really compare the two -
and, if it was only as legal as marijuana
as is the case in the netherlands...
there would be less schoolboy arguments
floating about...
  pristine & puritanical, are we?

if you've never been, you'll never know -
suddenly the freudian madonna-***** complex
emerges and rages battle with the pop culture
of its masculine counterpart, oedipus...
this is actually the one aspect of freud
i adhere to and champion -
   point being? if i didn't go to a brothel
i'd sink into a plethora of thought and inhibition
thinking that i might have an erectile
dysfunction...
      well, prostitutes said otherwise -
drunk like a skunk, lil' john managed to join
robin fiut (fiut? polish slang term for ****)
in the end...
              why is that?

see, another thing, why do interesting lives,
penned, produce the most obscenely mundane books?
for one: ghost writers...
            but who, in their right frame of mind,
pens a book about an interesting life?
         i never understood the concept of
autobiography, if it isn't an on-going, in the moment,
day by day biopic...
         england is rife with this genre,
and the books sell, probably just as well as
self-help leeches, sorry, "guides",
   but why do people think that having lived
an interesting life, an exciting life,
  that a book will also translate the same
interesting and exciting aspect of one's life?

comparison, well, i couldn't obtain a copy
of don juan's, but i got something nearing that
sort of content: harold norse's
          memoir of a ******* angel...

god, what a drag... i did want to buy one of
his poetry books... but these out-of-print
books, at 100+ quid, second hand?
     i had to pass, and buy the autobiography,
but mein gott, what a drag!
           it was twice as enjoyable reading
kierkegaard's either / or than it was reading
about... harold norse's life...
          even reading joseph kraszewski's
wrath of god was more entertaining...
  and yes, the majority of poles even find
kraszewski's prose "a bit" tedious,
             so that's telling you something.

books written as a post scriptum to an exciting
and an interesting life, are nothing more,
than the last breaths of a race horse after
he falls in the grand national race
having misguided a jump over these insane
height hurdles, breaking three of his legs
and having to be put down;
     it would always be more interesting,
to have a book written about you,
rather than by you...

         i write, because my life is hardly
a bungee jump adrenaline waterfall,
  nor is it sky diving, or diving, or anything for
that matter...
   it's comparative excitement comes
from a deal on a litre of bourbon at the supermarket,
sniffing the opened bottle and those
bulgarian girls...
            - like this one time, so i snoop around
the room while she takes my money and leaves
the room, upon returning, seeing me holding
a *****, and she asks:
     you wanna use it?
     and i reply: no, not really.
                too much contemplating taking
a ****, it would seem:
  that hole is reserved for things coming out,
not things coming in; or at least
                                    in my world.

i'm still going to die with the perfume of bourbon
reminding me of brothels, soap,
  body cream, sweet sweat and even sweeter
titbits of hushed tongues,
        talking of such brief,
                  agreements to exchange affection;

which still bugs me why in america you have
strip-clubs, and why brothels are shunned...
i think strip-clubs are the dumbest idea imaginable,
i've been to one, in athens...
             and i sat there, thinking of that
quote from the devil's advocate -

   look, but don't touch,
   touch, but don't taste.
   taste, but don't swallow.

i mean, come on... strip clubs are hardly
the churches that house the adoration of
women, they're more like a sausage fest
  or docile *****... more like the oedipus houses
of mass castration...
           even i know, having seen a bellydance
in edinburgh once that there's more allure
in a bellydance than in a striptease...
what are these men afraid of, not getting a *****,
or not realising the very apparent
freudian notion of the madonna-*****
complex?
              i think the latter, more and more;

here's to it: to brothels! prostitutes! and bums!

p.s. you'll become less neurotic dating a woman
who has had many ****** partners,
less, as it were: jealous,
  but definitely less neurotic.

always the lactephiliacs, never the cows / always the milk drinkers, never the mongrel eaters of coco puffs; bridesmaids ahoy!

i have absolutely no idea
as to happened in
the past 10 minutes...
  but it did...
        news of a sweet
  *******
hanging himself from
a well established group:
oh **** me,
back in the day, me and my
friend sam used to pretend
being punks and skateboarders,
we'd head to the RM1
nightclub and go mental
on metal and alternative rock
music,
   and then walk back
from romford to ilford,
singing *backstreet boys' song
forgetting to take the bus...
so yeah, under-age drinking,
sticky floors,
       mushrooms growing out
the ******* ceiling, the whole
dalmatian...
      given the drunken eye
it used to remind of:
   is that a cow barking,
      or am i ******* hallucinating?
no, i swear, that dog
just mooed!
   so why is that moon still up
in the sky?
   death pulling a joke with
                       its scythe sceptre?
the holy grail in the other
hand, consisting of an emptied
cranium...
  in my version of shakespeare
   of hamlet
yorick wouldn't be found seeking
"narcissus" talking to a skull:
   he'd be drinking wine from it!
what? god conjures
   parasites, man conjures dracula -
what's the problem,
    at least the former is just itchy-weird
while the former: oh **** me:
           zee makaber-romantik!
- but just now i started
looking at a youtube video:
thank **** i didn't get into
the community of making videos...
it's like revisiting a schoolyard
   playground:
watching these recent videos
is like telling yourself:
where was i when i should have
been watching
the english soap opera of eastenders;
where was i?!
              evidently not glued
to a t.v. like  that scene
from a clockwatch orange...
                  it's when people
get together that all hell breaks
loose...
  and yes,
    i'm one of the "cis" men who
can't believe that blaire white
is transexual... argument?
she's not a thai / brazilian surprise...
those ***** (pretty) boys
can pull a quick one on someone
like trainspotting's begbie...
  i must have said this before...
   well, i'm making time for
not being of the sort of people that
watched soap opera...
             about a fictional east-end...
i have the east-end of everywherer,
the internet!
               incy wincy spider came along
came along to a portion
of his web, sat down with a fly,
looked at the example and said:
forget our previous hierarchy,
i'll play the lion,
you play the hyena -
         these two are just about ripe
for zombified-dentistry of
biting the larynx;
but in all honesty,
   looking at the internet and the content
i sometimes watch,
   i could have been high-brow
about not watching the soap
opera eastenders...
   but now i'm in the mud within
the internet orientation...
   it was bound to become
just that...
                 thank **** for
producing content that is
not-passive, and can be absorbed while
falling asleep;
but still that image of a grown
man all the more
   pleased, to drink a cold glass
of milk upon waking up,
and not needing that ugh of all ughs
that's a "compliment" of corn flakes,
or shredded wheat cereal...
  milk on its own is just fine...
   i know that i'll turn my ****
into a geyser with a chili powder accent;
which is something you'd
probably call: **** *** in reverse.

A king’s funeral, no trumpets no band
Is now arranged by a snake’s cruel command
Who stole the throne-room where he used to stand
And marries your mom with his ****** hands

The uncle who put your father inna grave
Ignores approach of the Norwegian knave
His passion for power, it’s all he craves
Not even an ounce of goodness he saves

I get why you’re mad and why the man, who
Took away your dad, and the life once had
The villain, the cad, deserves nothing more
than poison you add with just a small pour

You have hidden your feelings in plain sight
Screaming and ranting, you look for a fight
Polonius, curtain, Oh! I am slain!
Is it the king? No, P. dies in vain

‘cause they are all playing their crude games, right
Trying to play you like musician’s pipes
While the floutists break their stereotype
Their life of fiction, removing the blight

I get why you’re mad and why the man, who
Took away your dad, and the life once had
The villain, the cad, deserves nothing more
than poison you add with just a small pour

But it’s all in vain
You die just the same

You were going to **** him while he prayed
But fear of death your humanity swayed
conscience struck and your cowardice stayed
Lost all action, decided not to slay

Your goodness beat out the pain he did cause
you snatched your righteousness from evil’s jaws
Grace had beaten out the justice of laws
Fie! Claud sends you to England just ‘cause

Look, I get why you’re mad, but come on man
Life is too short, you should not end the span
You human, you gad, to your dad you swore
Either end him now or mercy, implore

But it’s all in vain
You die just the same

What happened while in the graveyard that night?
Chap-fallen Yorick? The digger’s delight?
Ophelia, Her corpse drownéd, snow white?
“To Be” you chose, but King Claud you (still) spite

I get why you’re mad and why the man, who
Took away your dad, and the life once had
The villain, the cad, deserves nothing more
than poison you add with just a small pour

Look, I get why you’re mad, but come on man
Life is too short, come up with a (good) plan
You human, you gad, to your dad you swore
Either end him now or mercy, implore

But it’s all in vain
You died just the same