Dismembering Enjambment

Prejamble.

From the French enjamber, innit. Literally means to encroach or straddle (the lines) - see helpful illustration below, but don't try this on your local railway tracks as the results are not pleasant. It's also worth knowing that jambe is the French word for leg.

enjambment personified - sense the tension

How and why it works. 

As a poetic device, it's well famous. When reading a poem with an enjambed (rather than an end-stopped) line, the sense of that line of verse is not self-contained, meaning the syntax is not complete and the meaning runs over into the following line without punctuation, thus giving rise to a tension that is only resolved by the rejet, (more French, dudes), the word or phrase on the subsequent line that completes the syntax.

Dismembering Enjambment.

If that's not clear, let me break it down for you, with reference to the illustration above. The width of rails in Canada, also known as the track gauge, is  4 ft  8 1⁄2 in (or 1.435 metres). If a person is taller than that, say 6ft (or 1.829 metres) and is tied to the rails in the path of an oncoming locomotive, his head and his lower legs enjamb the lines and will get chopped off by the passing train. That will  leave a neat 4 ft 8 1⁄2 in body section, the standard width of the lines, plus two or three other separated body parts (head and legs) further down the track. The true identity of the poet (did I not mention that bit? someone couldn't abide his rhymes or so I guess), will only be resolved when all the bits are taken in conjunction, jammed together without punctuation. 

A very short history.

Homer was doing it 2,500 years ago - even before French was a thing. Clever geezer, that one. Some of the Biblical dudes followed suit, though that's probably gained in translation during Stuart times. Those clever Metaphysicals loved it. And Shakespeare, the GOAT, was well into his enjambments, wasn't he. Take his words for it, not mine.

Hamlet by the GOAT, performed by the RSC at Blackpool Grand Theatre

We went to see Hamlet, performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company at Blackpool Grand Theatre earlier this evening, and it was brilliant. Best play of all time. I studied it for A-level English and at university. It's a good job Blackpool FC managed a win this afternoon, because I would have struggled with two tragedies in one day.

Anyway, here's one of Hamlet's soliloquys. It's from Act IV scene iv and it's full of enjambment...

How all occasions do inform against me

And spur my dull revenge! What is a man

If his chief good and market of his time

Be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more.

Sure he that made us with such large discourse

Looking before and after gave us not

That capability and god-like reason

To fust in us unused. Now, whether it be

Bestial oblivion or some craven scruple

Of thinking too precisely on th'event -

A thought which quartered hath but one part 

Wisdom and ever three parts coward - I do not know

Why yet I live to say "This thing's to do",

Sith I have cause and will and strength and means

To do't...Examples gross as earth exhort me.

Witness this army of such mass and charge

Led by a delicate and tender prince

Whose spirit with divine ambition puffed

Makes mouths at the invisible event,

Exposing what is mortal and unsure 

To all that fortune, death and danger dare

Even for an eggshell... Rightly to be great

Is not to stir without great argument

But greatly to find quarrel in a straw

When honour's at the stake. How stand I then,

That have a father killed, a mother stained,

Excitements of my reason and my blood

And let all sleep? while to my shame I see

The imminent death of twenty thousand men

That for a fantasy and trick of fame

Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot

Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause

Which is not tomb enough and continent

to hide the slain? O, from this time forth

My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth.

            

Thanks for reading. Mind how you go, S ;-)

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Summit Up?

Ever one to strive to avoid the obvious, the Saturday Blog in tackling the theme of  summit  will make no more than passing reference to mountain peaks or high-level political pow-wows (and that was the passing reference.)

In fact, gentle reader, I'm going to subvert it somewhat, tip it upside down and see what truths fall out of the generally accepted notion that being at the top is a permanently happy place.

Those of you familiar with Maslow's Hierarchy will know he suggested that human beings have five levels of need. In ascending order from the most basic they are: physiological (food, water, sleep, shelter et cetera), security (personal, emotional, financial et cetera), social (family, friendship, grouping, coupling and so on), self-esteem (confidence, sense of worth et cetera) and self-actualization (utilising abilities and talents, seeking happiness...the idea that "What a man can be, he must be" - and for man, read human being).

Maslow's basic premise was that you only start getting to grips with a level of need once the one below it is catered for. It's a bit rigid as a concept although it contains some obvious good sense especially at the base end of the pyramid - who after all worries about self-esteem and self-actualization if they're are consumed with finding food to eat or somewhere to sleep safely at night? - but I contend that the sequence of fulfilment becomes a bit topsy turvy the higher one moves up the rank of needs... the social, self-worth and transcendent happiness bits mix up, wax and wane. We can't be constantly "going at our peak" (to quote the magnificent Game Theory).

For example, here I have to quote Hamlet (from the play of the same name):
"What a piece of work is man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving, how express and admirable in action, how like an angel in apprehension, how like a god: the beauty of the world; the paragon of animals; and yet to me, what is this quintessence of dust?"

Powerful prose, don't you agree? But he was one depressed (and possibly repressed) Dane; though the point is that no matter what we aspire to in the belief that it will bring us lasting satisfaction (a good job, a happy union, financial well-being, lots of stuff) there will be times when that 'whatever' won't appear to do the trick (unless we are very hollow).

Hollow Henry Hoovering Happily?

Mankind (human kind) may appear to be the crown of creation but that is no cause for arrogance or complacency. Our place on the podium - as individuals and as a species - is not guaranteed.

As if to prove the point, here's something I wrote for World Mental Health Day about the curse of the cur, depression...

Black Dog
When it followed me at first
I thought it must be
someone else's hound
lolloping soundlessly at heel
through the park at dusk,
but there was no one else around.

I shook it off that time
but when it joined me next
as I took my customary evening stroll
I guessed it must have searched me out.

Several times it even followed me home
and I figured it for a stray.
I always turned it away.

More recently I've woken
to find it waiting at the gate.
It never barks, just glowers darkly.
I'd put off venturing forth
till it was gone
although it sometimes made me late.

And now, I don't know how,
it's found a way into the house.
I hear it pacing, breathing,
right outside my bedroom door.

I think I'll never leave my bedroom
anymore...

Hollow Henry's Hellhound

Okay, to lighten the mood, I leave you with a musical bonus: Jefferson Airplane performing  Crown Of Creation  (Just click on the song title to activate the hyperlink.)

Thanks for reading! To thine own self be true, S ;-)

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Rapunzel Complex

Hair and Fur - another theme that did little to inspire my blogging compadres, apparently. No matter, I'm going to make this Saturday a 'Grimm Hair Day'.

I've always loved long hair - on women especially (though my own was well below shoulder-length for a few fashionably rebellious years in the 1970s) - and in my research for this post I stumbled across the curious phenomenon of 'real life Rapunzels', a discovery which I owe it to share with you.

I don't know if this fad has got anything to do with the Disneyfication of the Rapunzel tale (Tangled, 2010 and its sequel Tangled Ever After, 2012, neither of which animated films I have seen) or if it is just a fashion fixation catalysed by the ubiquity of social media platforms like Instagram. Most of the modern-day 'Rapunzels' appear to be Eastern European or Russian. Some, it seems, have achieved considerable fame (and fortune?) as a result of their extremely long (and let's be honest, ravishingly beautiful) hair. One even claims to have suffered from androgenetic alopecia as a teenager until working diligently with trichologists restored her crowning glory and led to a modelling contract with a well-known brand of shampoo. I would have thought such mane-maintenance would be pretty time-consuming, but apparently not. The secret? Wash your hair twice a week (adding a dash of olive oil) and eat a large spoonful of peanut butter a day.


a 'real life Rapunzel'

Of course, most of these girls only grow their hair down to their knees or ankles (which feat in itself can take up to thirteen years). That's about five feet of luscious hair. In the original (by the Brothers Grimm) Rapunzel's tresses were fully 'twenty ells' long - that's about thirty feet. For those of you not overly familiar with the old German tale, I reprise it briefly here in my own words. Are you sitting comfortably?

Rapunzel Retold (or Trouble With Rampion)
Far away and long ago in a princedom without compare lived a poor man and his wife in a village which possessed a walled garden. After many years of longing for a child their hopes appeared to be fulfilled when the wife fell pregnant. As often happens at such times, she became obsessed with cravings, one of which was for the rampion which grew in abundance in that walled garden. Her desire was so intense that she prevailed upon her husband to scale the wall and steal some rampion for her, which she made into a delicious salad and devoured in ecstasy. That experience only served to intensify her craving and she told her husband she must have more of the delicious rampion or she would go distracted and die. Fearing for his wife and unborn child, the man climbed once more into the walled garden and set about stealing more handfuls of the lovely rampion which grew there...

Rampion

...only oops! this time he was caught in the act by the enchantress whose garden it was. She was angered to the point of wanting to exact the full weight of justice on the man for his wicked deed until he fell on her mercy and explained why he was purloining her salad plants. In short, a deal was struck (unlikely though this sounds). The enchantress told the man that rather than having him tried and condemned as a thief, she would give him permission to help himself to as much rampion as his wife desired until she came to term - in exchange for the baby when it was born. The deal was done; the wife's reaction not recorded.

On the day the baby was born the enchantress appeared to claim her due, promising the parents she would love and care for the little girl as if she were her own. The enchantress named the baby Rapunzel and was good to her word, cherishing the little girl as she grew...until she reached puberty when, for reasons best known to herself, the enchantress relocated Rapunzel to a tower in the middle of a forest and locked her in. The tower was of a peculiar construction, having no door (allegedly), only a window near the top, and Rapunzel lived in that room at the top with nothing to do all day but grow her hair and sing. Still, she was happy - oh, and beautiful of course - and the kind enchantress visited her regularly, access and egress being enabled by Rapunzels's long hair (thirty feet of it) which she twisted into a rope and lowered from the window for the enchantress to climb up and down.

Many moons came and went (about forty-seven if one bothered counting) and Rapunzel blossomed in her tower, growing luscious hair and singing cheerful tunes - until one day the handsomest prince came riding by, heard her and was smitten by that captivating voice. He circled the tower but could see no door to knock on. Hot damn! He was in the process of riding away when the enchantress arrived and he hid behind a helpful tree while she called out 'Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair' (only in long ago princedom language). The prince watched in amazement as a beauty appeared at the window and threw down her shining rope of living hair for the enchantress to clamber up.

That evening the prince returned to the tower and called out 'Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair' and the young lady complied, no questions asked. The young persons' attraction was almost immediate, mutual and passionate. The enchantress used to visit every day during daylight hours and so the prince took to visiting Rapunzel every evening, sometimes staying until nearly dawn (with the eventual consequence as often transpires in such situations). Fast-forward some weeks and the young couple were hatching plans for Rapunzel's escape and a happy-ever-after when one day she forgot herself and complained to the enchantress that she really tugged at Rapunzel's hair, unlike the nimble prince. Oh no, undone! The enchantress flew into a rage of betrayal, hacked off twenty-nine feet  of Rapunzel's hair and banished the girl to a deserted region with immediate effect.

That night when the prince called, the enchantress hung down Rapunzel's severed rope of hair, the eager prince clambered up and horrors! came face to face with the enchantress who told him Rapunzel was lost to him and he would never see her again. In princely fear and anguish he jumped out of the high window and landed in a thorn-bush which blinded him in both eyes.

However, that's not the end of the story (which would be too sad). After many a year of wandering about blind, moaning the loss of his love and living off berries and such, the prince came by chance to the deserted region where Rapunzel lived in wretched, unmarried motherhood with the prince's twin sons. As soon as she saw him she cried hot tears into his sad and lovely face, which tears miraculously restored him to perfect 20/20 vision - and so, hastening back to the palace the prince, his beautiful (but bobbed) Rapunzel and the two little princes lived happily for a mighty long time. The 'real' end.

Moving on (from the ridiculously sublime to the sublimely ridiculous?) here's a link to a comb-over comedy classic, the wonderful Gregor Fisher in sixty seconds of one of my favourite TV adverts of all time, for Hamlet cigars: Photo Booth Advert 

'You'

To finish with, a new poem that has little directly to do with hair or fur, but take it (and the photo above) as an oblique commentary on 'real life' fairy stories - rarely a happy ending.

By The By
You bought me a book
for my birthday,
the day you proposed.

Ten years later
we're both wedded and divorced
and I've just read it -

took a decade
for me to pick it up,
but I feel no remorse.

I was the sucker,
and you were the fucker
(of more than just me)

but let's leave it there
ambiguously. By the by,
the book's a disappointment too.


Thanks as ever for reading. Remember the peanut butter tip, S ;-)

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Resolve

For the first Saturday Blog of 2018, the theme is  resolve   - how predictable is that? New Year resolutions? I haven't made any. There was a time when I did, but it didn't make any difference to anything except engender a sense of disillusion with myself when I failed to keep them. So that's that. I know how Hamlet felt!

Neat segue... Talk of resolve always makes me think of Shakespeare's greatest play, triggered by Hamlet's soliloquy from Act I scene 2:
"O, that this too too sullied flesh would melt,
 Thaw and resolve itself into a dew"... etc

Peerless poetry. I studied it first for English A-level and then at Warwick University, where G.K Hunter, the revered Shakespearean scholar, was a founding professor of the English department. I've probably seen Hamlet acted more times than any other play and still re-read it from time to time in an old and battered (but much loved) Cambridge University Press edition. Like all great works of literature it has such complexity and resonance that I discover new facets every time I encounter it.

Since Christmas, I've been spending a lot of time with Adele and her ailing mother. Dorothy (Lady D) was not expected to make it into the New Year, having survived a hip operation at the beginning of December only to contract a bad chest infection. She's currently on an end-of-life palliative care regime in the comfort of her own home, but she's so far defying prognostications - once again. There are good days and bad days. She may pull through, or she may find it all too exhausting. At 97 (and half-blind and half-deaf) bouncing back should not be taken for granted. It's a raw and difficult time for her family, as you might imagine.

Today's poem stems from events and observations that have impressed themselves on me in recent days. I hope it's okay to share this... I think the link to the theme will be obvious.

Resolve Into Adieu*
For so many long decades
a member of the tribe tenacious,
she finds
now that she wants to loosen her grip
and slip with dignity
into the dark night of sleep,
it's not up to her after all
the moment of her going.

"I'm so tired, love, I just want
to be done with everything", she wails,
this frail frame of bones
festooned with ills,
this wafer-thin bird
who waits for a caressing breeze
to carry her sailing home
to her fearless friend.

But it's not her call.

Resolve though she might,
she cannot dictate her end
and so surprised, she rallies,
a lucid mind in a pellucid shell.

Greeting another winter's day
without undue commotion,
she waits with equilibrium
to see
which way this play will go,
prepared to embrace life or death,
let come what may.

*For Dorothy Robinson (1920-2018)

Adieu! Thanks for reading, S ;-)

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For In That Sleep...

...of death, what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil
Must give us pause - there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.

Those lines are from the famous 'To be or not to be' soliloquy as spoken by the famous Hamlet in the play written by the famous Shakespeare of course. More of which later.

First, I want to tell you about Thursday evening, because a funny thing happened on the way to the Dead Good Poets open mic night. We arrived at the venue (a very pleasant bar in Lytham St Annes that has been our regular haunt for some several months) only to find it all shut up and with a sign saying 'closed due to illness'. There had been no fore-warning, which in these days of global connectivity was a bit of a surprise. Hurried mobile phone calls to the owners bounced straight through to a message box. A bunch (a declamation? is there a collective noun?) of disconsolate poets and their entourages milled unhappily on the pavement outside. Expectation and disappointment mingled in the air; plus, it was turning cold and wet. What to do?

Fortunately for us, a nearby Greek taverna was experiencing something of a quiet Thursday evening and we cajoled them into giving us a performance space in the back half room of their restaurant, in return for our trade (much Mythos, Demestica and meze was consumed). Poetry At The Greek, of necessity, was different from anything we've done before - interesting to perform with the strains of bouzouki music in the background - but a great time was had by all and a huge thank you goes to the staff of Taverna for being so accommodating. Flame is well worth a visit, good people, even when there is no poetry on the menu. By a spooky slice of serendipity, Adele and I are off to Kos next week for some mid-September Mediterranean sun, so this was an excellent taster.

Back on theme with a bump, Hamlet's dilemma (good Greek word) about whether or not to commit suicide hinged partly on his fear about what form a possible afterlife (if any) might take, the worry being that it might be worse than the life he was living; (i.e. Hell might welcome one who took his own life).

Many of the world's major civilizations and religions have propounded the belief that death on this earthly, temporal plane is not the end. The Egyptians believed in reincarnation as do Buddhists; the Greeks in recycling (with memory wiped clean), Christians in Heaven and Hell (and resurrection). You know all this stuff and I'm no authority on the subject, so I won't tread on ground I'm not sure of.

Suffice it to say that no one knows for certain what may befall hereafter, if anything. Many believe and as many are sceptical. My own father, a devoutly religious man, told me when he was dying that he had no fear of death as he looked forward to meeting his God and being reunited with my mother (who had died nearly 20 years earlier). I was happy for him in his unwavering conviction. I'm sure it gave him strength to face that particular rite of passage; I'm not sure my mother would have been so happy (because of the snoring - but that's another story).

Accounts from 'flatliners', those who have 'died' for some minutes and been resuscitated, often retell an experience of going down a dark tunnel towards a bright light, but clinical evidence suggests it is an entirely temporal, physiological manifestation, an effect of the brain shutting down as it is starved of oxygen. If you know me, or have been reading the blogs for any length of time, you could probably hazard a guess that I would hazard a guess that once the spark of life has died there is nothing left of us or for us as entities. Our metaphorical sleep is of necessity a dreamless one.

I didn't feel inclined to write a poem on the subject of death/afterlife but I've conjured a strange ekphrastic one about the living dream state of a sleeping beauty (in what I assume must have been a coma), inspired by this rather fine painting.

Not So Sweet Cicely
She's going through a bad spell,
not so sweet Cicely,
benighted, bewitched, benumbed
beside a brackish inky stream,
upon a bed of crushed flowers
deep in the haunted dell
of thwarted desire.

Who'd be a Sorcerer's daughter?
Such a thankless lot.

Cicely promised her heart
to one of whom her father disapproved.
She chose defiance and lost.
Angry magic has her in remorseless grip,
immobilised; the retribution
of parental ire for wishes crossed.

Such unnatural cruelty
visited by a Magus upon a favourite daughter
might be expected to abate in short order,
excepting this:

as he reads her mind, not so sweet Cicely

in her intransigent dream still dotes

upon the unsuitable suitor, hopes 

his bold soul will have power
to break sorcery's rigid hold,
free her from this tyranny
of comatose repose
on the forest floor
before the rotting 

leaves of autumn
and winter frosts
blight her in

the bower.

As an aural bonus, not so much an inspiration, more a complement, here's a beautiful Jimi Hendrix song born out of a dream. Play it loud: One Rainy Wish

Thanks for reading. Have yourselves a dream of a week, S ;-)

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Iron Filings

electrons leap from atom to atom

we don’t ask to see their papers

These lines are shavings, iron filings, left on the floor after I had taken a poem through several drafts of attack.  I like the sentiment behind these lines, especially this week, given the political atrocities, but the thought was a distraction when set in a poem whose subject was the quiet moment after an argument with my daughter.  What I wanted was a sense of metal cooling.  These lines were inappropriate.

can she see yet?                                                                                  

how the silver slips through my fingers?

how I rust, unburnished? 

These lines are from the same poem.  Also discarded. The 'rust, unburnished' comes from Tennyson's Ulysses.  This was more appropriate in terms of subject but, by the time I came to the fifth draft, it didn't quite fit the narrative.  I had decided to focus on the conflict between the dark, quiet room and her heated words.  This introverted metaphysical questioning prevented the reader from directly relating to that scene.  Again, I like the lines but not in this place.

Looking back, I can also place a finger where I replaced the word 'unfathomable' with 'recondite' - following Norman Hadley's wise advice that four syllable words do not scan easily and therefore five syllable words should be kept for special occasions.  Recondite is pleasing because it sounds like a mineral and reflects the title of the poem: Among a mineral of metals base.

The title was taken from Gertrude's line in Hamlet.  It's a line which I only noticed for the first time when I saw the play in Stratford-Upon-Avon with my daughter.  It relates to a chink of morality among madness and Hamlet's tears after murdering Polonius.  This seemed appropriate. 

The poem in question has a sub-theme of metals as it was written for a competition on that theme.  In its initial drafts it was creatively arranged on the page, so that it read as three columns which could be understood separately or taken as a whole.  The feedback I received told me that this style was confusing to read and unnecessary.  The final piece is a simple poem, left-aligned, in six stanzas.  When I showed the final draft to my other half he told me he had quite liked it when it was arranged in three strands.  I reminded him that he had found this confusing to read, as had others, hence the change to a simple layout.  He thought I had lost something in conceding to my readers. 

I agree that I lost something of the elemental (if you don't mind) fierceness of the original layout when I rearranged it into a more standard page poem.  Having said that, in working those three strands into one I was able to concentrate the image into something more immediate.  It comes down to how hard I would like my audience to work.  I think they might have found the initial style more satisfying after a few readings but perhaps it's a tad rude to expect them to have to work that hard? 

What do you think?

 

 

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Hamlet (as told in FaceBook status updates)

 by Ashley Lister

 This has nothing to do with this week's theme but I can't add anything to the genius posts that have already been put on here this week on the theme of sequential art. 

The piece below was performed last night (Friday September 14) by a stellar cast at the No. 5 Cafe in Blackpool. The performance was made outstanding by superb acting from  Michelle (Hamlet), Standard (Horatio) Colin, (Polonius and Claudius), Louise (Ophelia and Gertrude) and Shaun (Bernardo, Laertes and Fortinbras).

As the title to this says: it's Hamlet told in FaceBook status updates.

Act I Scene I

Bernardo – location tagged ELSINORE

OMG. Look at that ghost.

Horatio.

STFU. FAKE. Photos or it didn’t happen. There’s no ghost. LOL.

Bernardo

There it is.

Horatio.

OMG. It looks like Hamlet’s dead dad. We should totally tell Hamlet. LOL

Hamlet was tagged in this post.

Bernardo.

Totally. Oh. It’s gone.

Act I Scene II

Hamlet (via Twitter)

King Claudius’s speeches are so f***ing dull. Boring mofo.

Hamlet (via Twitter)

mofo. LOL

HORATIO LIKES THIS

Hamlet (via Twitter)

My mum is such a S.L.U.T.

Hamlet (via Twitter)

She’s had more men under her than Fortinbras.

HORATIO LIKES THIS.

Hamlet (via Twitter)

Laertes is leaving Denmark. Awesomesauce. Maybe I’ll get a chance to pork his sister.

OPHELIA LIKES THIS.

Act I Scene III

Laertes posted on Ophelia’s timeline:

Watch out for that nonce Hamlet. He’s trying to pork you.

Ophelia has commented:

Coolio

Laertes:

It’s not coolio you dirty bitch.

Polonius:

No. It’s not coolio, you dirty bitch. Neither a borrower nor a slapper be.

Ophelia:

Father? What are you doing on my FaceBook? I thought I’d blocked you. And you’re an old person. You should be on MySpace. I swear your nosiness is going to drive me insane.

Act I Scene IV

HORATIO – POSTED FROM SOMEWHERE IN ELSINORE

OMG. Hamlet’s gone totally Ghostbusters chasing around the castle after Casper-the-ghost-dad. Ah, Hamlet. DTF.

Act I, Scene V

Hamlet (via Twitter)

OMG. Spooky ghost stuff. It was like an episode of Scooby Doo starring my dead dad. Or like an episode of Most Haunted with real ghosts.

HORATIO LIKES THIS.

Hamlet (via Twitter)

Ghost dad sez Creepy Uncle Claudius killed him.

HORATIO LIKES THIS.

Hamlet commented on his own status:

Dude, you’re not supposed to like a status about my dad being killed.

Hamlet (via Twitter)

Ghost dad wants me to avenge him.

HORATIO LIKES THIS.

Hamlet (via Twitter)

Killing seems a bit extreme. But Ghost Dad sez I shouldn’t bother the authorities with this. Ghost Dad sez the Gods want me to do this. Sounds legit.

Act II, Scene I

Ophelia changed her relationship status to single.

Hamlet posted to Ophelia’s timeline

WTF? Are you dumping me, bitch?

Ophelia

You’re acting like a dick, Hamlet. Of course I’m dumping you.

Hamlet (via Twitter)

You’re the one with the ‘daddy’s girl’ issues.

Ophelia

Harsh words from ‘mummy’s boy’.

Hamlet (via Twitter)

Why don’t you go and jump in a lake?

HORATIO LIKES THIS

Act II Scene II

Rosencrantz has sent a friend request to Hamlet. This friendship was suggested by Claudius.

Guildenstern has sent a friend request to Hamlet. This friendship was suggested by Claudius.

Polonius has asked Hamlet a question through Goodreads

Polonius asks: “What are you reading?”

Hamlet replies: “Words, words and words. And MYOB. Sod off back to MySpace.

Polonius has invited Hamlet to Elsinore Netflix

Polonius asks: “Do you want to see some players act a play?”

Hamlet replies: “The play’s the thing. Wherein we’ll catch the conscience of my creepy uncle.”

Act III Scene I

Hamlet (via Twitter)

To be connected to Samaritans online, or not to be connected to them. A pox on talktalk Broadband. A pox on this muggle-fudging BlackBerry.

Ophelia commented on Hamlet’s status.

FFS. All these actors in Elsinore, and you’re still the biggest drama queen in Denmark.

GERTRUDE LIKES THIS

Hamlet

Bitches. I’ve had it with women. You can all go and do one. I’m going to start going with men now. See how you like it if I do go gay.

HORATIO LIKES THIS

Act III Scene II

Claudius: (via iPhone)

What a crap play. I’ve seen better acting in Hollyoaks.

Hamlet

Did it make you feel guilty?

Claudius (via iPhone)

I felt bad that I’d wasted time and money on that when I could have been watching paint dry.

I’d have been better off spending time alongside an old man like Polonius, watching his daughter and my step-son trying to have sex. But not in a sinister way.

OOPS. How the hell do you delete updates from an iPhone?

Perhaps I should cleanse my soul with prayer.

Act III Scene III

Hamlet (via Twitter)

Just seen Claudius praying. I should have killed him whilst I had the chance.

Hamlet (via Twitter)

I think I’ll go and see the S.L.U.T.

Act III Scene IV

Hamlet (via Twitter)

Can’t believe my mother is such a slapper. She’s had more men go through her than the castle gates.

Gertrude

I can see your status updates. I’ll cancel your mobile account if you keep saying rude things.

Hamlet (via Twitter)

Well it’s true. You shagged my dad. Then his brother. And now there’s a dead Polonius tucked behind your arras. Did you shag him to death?

Polonius has cancelled his FB account.

Gertrude

No. I didn’t shag him to death. You just stabbed him.

Hamlet

FAKE. Photos or it didn’t happen. In fact screw this. I’m going to England with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. 

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were tagged in this post.

ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN LIKE THIS

Act IV Scene I

Hamlet (via Ye Olde Internet Café)

No broadband coverage in England. Duh. It’s so medieval in this godforsaken country. I’m having to update using dial-up. Will tell you all about the pirate adventures and high sea japes as soon as I return.

Horatio

FAKE. Pics or it didn’t happen. PMSL. Miss you, hon.

Act IV Scene II

Ophelia

God buy you.

Laertes

That’s autocorrect. Or she’s gone mental. Or her keyboard is f****d.

Claudius. (via iPhone)

I think she might be on the blob.

Laertes

Harsh, dude. She’s my sister.

Ophelia has cancelled her FaceBook account

Claudius(via iPhone)

It’s not harsh. Do you know how costly it is to dredge the local rivers when they’re clogged with drowned mental woman?

Act IV

Hamlet set up the following event: HAMLET’S RETURN  TO ELSINORE. DATE – tomorrow

The following people have accepted.

HAMLET (host)

Claudius

Gertrude

Laertes

Horatio

Fortinbras: message from Fortinbras – might be a little late.

The following invitees have not responded:

Ophelia

Polonius

Rosencrantz

Guildenstern

Act V

Horatio

ROFLCOPTER. Spent the morning in the graveyard with Hamlet. We just dug up some skulls and talked about kissing their lips but there was nothing kinky going on.

HAMLET LIKES THIS

Act V Scene I

Horatio

OMG. WTF. It’s kicking off at this party. Laertes and Hamlet are going to duel with real swords. Hamlet FTW. I hope he doesn’t get a prick in him. Well, not from Laertes.

Laertes

I’m going to stick it to you, dude.

Hamlet was tagged in this post.

Hamlet

Just like you stuck it to your sister?

HORATIO LIKES THIS

Claudius (via iPhone)

I wish Polonius was here to tell me how much poison to use. I’ve put poison on one of the swords. Poison in a drinking glass. And I’ve poisoned three out of four plates of the hors d’ouevres. Hopefully this will be enough to kill that annoying shit Hamlet.

OOPS. Didn’t mean to post that as a FB status. How do you delete from a mobile?

Gertrude

These hors d’ouevres taste f*****g awful. I’m going to try another plate.

Laertes

Ouch! That bastard stabbed me with a poisoned sword. Claudius – where’s the antidote?

CLAUDIUS WAS TAGGED IN THIS POST.

Claudius (via iPhone)

Antidote?

LAERTES has cancelled his FB account.

Hamlet

How am I supposed to concentrate on this sword fight when my opponent is dead and my S.L.U.T. mother is rolling around on the floor pretending she’s been poisoned?

Gertrude has now cancelled her FB account.

Claudius has now cancelled his FB account.

Hamlet has now cancelled his FB account.

Horatio

WTF? It’s like the end of a slasher movie in here. There’s dead Hamlet, dead Leartes, dead Gertrude and dead Claudius. I wonder if I could give Hamlet the kiss of life? I’ll just unbutton his trousers and see if that helps.

Fortinbras.

WTF! What are you doing to that dead body, Horatio?

Horatio

I’m not doing anything. I’m just trying to resuscitate Hamlet’s corpse.

Fortinbras

OK. You carry on. Stop updating these posts to FB. And I’ll see if I can resuscitate his mother. After this, the rest should be silence.

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