Last night I dreamt
I was starring once again
in the Red Barn's production
of Hamlet, of all things,
waiting in the dark wings,
adjusting my princely
costume when a stagehand
asked me where I've been
all these weeks of rehearsal
and, staring at the Danish
night fog I think, what the hell?,
it's opening night and I've
somehow done it again,
missed out on all the
walk-throughs and preparations,
and as I walk on stage
I look for the prompter's cues,
there's no time for anything
but the stage of my life,
my story, and these people
in the darkness reading
their programs, gasping,
I stare out at the Danish
ghosts and open my mouth
and syllables stumble
forth, as if I almost
know what to say, it's
a clumsy performance, line
by painful line, each one
a surprise, bungled soliloquies,
clodhopping verbal sparrings,
the fencing scenes are
pathetic but somehow
the audience buys all this
method madness to the point
when I'm nicked by Laertes'
blade and the cold poison
rushes through my blood, I
fall hard to the wood stage
floor, the stage lights blur,
my mind howls like some
unvanquished ghost fading,
I can hear the actors
carry on, order's restored
and the audience exhales
in tragic wonder, they will
exeunt to ponder their lives.
This is the price of
hesitation, emptied into
the night to wonder about
these things.
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