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Hamlet Mnemonic Series
for Dickey Nesenger OPHELIA MNEMONIC Half anxiety, half resolve, her little unattended gesture are like birds. I don’t know how she shadows them. Her face had openness. Our paths crossed, for example, at Horatio’s house. Song has something on its mind: a lesion. We can burn the small hat, and that ought to take place. The eloquent pauses remind me of parallel tracks on her arms. She dwarfed Hamlet, principally by her feeling through his shirt. Hamlet’s forelock— the truth of numbness curling in one place. The very tall girl was now a man in a burgundy sweater. Some grass loves to live in the hand it hurts, avoiding yeses. A precision of leaf, emptiness, leaf. Hamlet waits, that factualist, does everything except submit. Maybe Ophelia was asking for the green slippers. She diminished each object only to ache more, music dripping from the blade. Ghosts just want to talk it out, hemisphere and world, all over the dewy lawn. They gaze greedily at Hamlet. The root he had wandered to and from with her little fripperies, her frights was useless to her, pulled up. And Hamlet’s trees? They flush the zone behind her eyes. She doesn’t fantasize. She was embarrassed by her indifference toward prepping garden implements (rake and mosaic: recognize and till). I stared back at her baby. I can’t—fill in the blank—your thighs, your hooker boots. She seemed really young for her glasses. Do you like my poems? she asked. Her birdsong tugged at me. HAMLET MNEMONIC Was it here, on the way to the pool, that I would prod a mound already so tender? Was there another place quietly going nuts? Sometimes my phantom adheres to flinty stiles and works the southwest path. The moot points gathering ahead might be left in pockets, touched by might. But no. I find pennies and after dinner mints as I gather resolve from your body. This garish sight has the mystery of waning, the firm chin of earth. Your body flares up in the child and the graveyard—in playgrounds. The graveyard smiled. I saw the crooked grin as though the heart had partitioned itself diplomatically. The tall girl finds the grain of ether for my fancy. I forget my last two dreams, my last two pearls. Your soul cannot separate, I told you. It dwarfed me, with its arms about my neck. Wherein lies imagined, without a stone, the cross of phantom suspenders. Oh and now you go past, shoe by shoe. We have a lot on our minds. We cross the graveyard like ash I might stir with my finger. I’m in brown trousers, clasping you. Are you ready? Lean on my arm, scratch me good like the holly. Country graveyards can’t be rinsed out of the brain. There’s eternity in them, no movement. They become my years of berries, the braided bone. GHOST MNEMONIC I can play each part, be Hamlet, hands in pockets, and then the bikers disappearing over the lip of the grave. Plus, the dog’s four legs. There’s a cold gold light, everything shaking and Ophelia newly dead. My initial schlep toward Hamlet and the tannic depths of the glass cup cast glitter, the plaid shorts were snug over the leggings. Let inspiration cast extra confetti: sky turn apricot, mind crack down the visor. Raise the visor. See both sides of the dunce. I found a little more strength. Summon the dream. Be quick! (Difficult in sun.) There was the softest blue sky with peaks, blue sitting up there awhile with white. Was there another place? The teabag withered inside my cup, its little paper flag bumping slightly in the air. My long jacket—well, there’s that kind of ease that comes with green and brown suspenders. The easy birds were insects in the distance. It wasn’t so hard to clear my throat, begin. My son, dig yourself out. Move. Displace. The burgundy hedges were unruffled, despite Hamlet shambling in and out of them. I’d like two pairs of legs, please. My son is not very bright. He’s fully leafed, well, almost. The holly never drowses. Let it scratch out notes on the sky’s paper. How is hell going to be? Well, hell. What’s the difference between a violin and a viola? A viola burns more slowly. (There’s more of it. Heh, heh.) Uncover the berries. The little bits of scarlet make us feel safe, like the gray of bare branches, truisms. Oh, and now there’s my son Hamlet again. Ophelia guides him with her ungloved hand. › Order Books |
