My deepest apologies to William Shakespeare, and to all those (I am one) who love the work of that genius. This is composed as a mash poem by combining two of one’s works or yours and another writer. Hence, that which contains the soliloquy from Shakespeare’s Hamlet and the poem “Faded from the vision” I wrote in July, 2008. For you poor Yorick. My gorge rises at it, thus the green for Bill’s words.
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I am tired of feeling the weight of years
To be, or not to be–that is the question:
Like the muck sucking at my life’s boots
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
Each step an effort of defiance.
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Defiance is the oxygen to my brain.
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
To what purpose I have asked myself,
And by opposing end them. To die, to sleep–
Does one choose that which they are to be
No more–and by a sleep to say we end
Or is choice only the pasturage of the wealthy
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
Unclogged with the principles of existence
That flesh is heir to. ‘Tis a consummation
The chains of expectation drag one into the mire
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep–
Shackled by the commitments for honor, for love,
To sleep–perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub,
Keyed and captured in the clanging of our words
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
Spoken only for lack of reasonable thought.
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
A dream scape flashes the past faster and faster
Must give us pause. There’s the respect
The projector dies trying to keep up
That makes calamity of so long life.
But the pictures have not faded from the vision.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Time does that when the bulb element ceases.
Donald Harbour Poetry 