Some fine poetry of the musical sort

"Title of the Song" - Da Vinci's Notebook

Declaration of my feelings for you
Elaboration on those feelings
Description of how long these feelings have existed
Belief that no one else could feel the same as I
Reminiscence of the pleasant times we shared
And our relationship's perfection
Recounting of the steps that led to our love's dissolution
Mostly involving my unfaithfulness and lies
Penitent admission of wrongdoing
Discovery of the depth of my affection
Regret over the lateness of my epiphany

(Chorus)
Title of the song
Naïve expression of love
Reluctance to accept that you are gone
Request to turn back time
And rectify my wrongs
Repetition of the title of the song

Enumeration of my various transgressive actions
Of insufficient motivation
Realization that these actions led to your departure
And my resultant lack of sleep and appetite
Renunciation of my past insensitive behavior
Promise of my reformation
Reassurance that you still are foremost in my thoughts now
Need for instructions how to gain your trust again
Request for reconciliation
Listing of the numerous tasks that I'd perform
Of physical and emotional compensation

CHORUS

Acknowledgment that I acted foolishly
Increasingly desperate pleas for your return
Sorrow for my infidelity
Vain hope that my sins are forgivable
Appeal for one more opportunity
Drop to my knees to elicit crowd response
Prayers to my chosen deity
Modulation and I hold a high note...

CHORUS


"The Scientist" - Coldplay

Come up to meet ya, tell you I'm sorry
You don't know how lovely you are
I had to find you, tell you I need ya
And tell you I set you apart
Tell me your secrets, and nurse me your questions
Oh lets go back to the start
Running in circles, coming in tails
Heads on a science apart
Nobody said it was easy
It's such a shame for us to part
Nobody said it was easy
No one ever said it would be this hard
Oh take me back to the start

I was just guessing at numbers and figures
Pulling the puzzles apart
Questions of science, science and progress
Do not speak as loud as my heart
And tell me you love me, come back and haunt me
Oh and I rush to the start
Running in circles, chasing tails
Coming back as we are

Nobody said it was easy
Oh it's such a shame for us to part
Nobody said it was easy
No one ever said it would be so hard
I'm going back to the start

The Joy of Subtext!

(my additions are in bold)

SCENE IV. The Queen's closet.

Enter QUEEN GERTRUDE and POLONIUS
LORD POLONIUS

He will come straight. Look you lay home to him:
Tell him his pranks have been too broad to bear with,
And that your grace hath screen'd and stood between
Much heat and him. I'll sconce me even here.
Pray you, be round with him.
(Find out why Hamlet is behaving so strangely)
HAMLET
[Within] Mother, mother, mother!
QUEEN GERTRUDE
I'll warrant you,
Fear me not (said to Hamlet): withdraw, I hear him coming (said to Polonius).

POLONIUS hides behind the arras
Enter HAMLET

HAMLET
Now, mother, what's the matter?
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.
(Referring to Claudius)
HAMLET
Mother, you have my father much offended.
(Referring to his actual father)
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.
HAMLET
Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Why, how now, Hamlet!
HAMLET
What's the matter now?
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Have you forgot me?
Don’t you care about me?
HAMLET
No, by the rood, not so:
You are the queen, your husband's brother's wife;
And--would it were not so!--you are my mother.
Your actions have been so horrible that it would be impossible for me to forget about you.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Nay, then, I'll set those to you that can speak.
HAMLET
Come, come, and sit you down (directing her to a chair); you shall not budge;
You go not till I set you up a glass
Where you may see the inmost part of you.
I’m going to show you the error of your ways.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
What wilt thou do? thou wilt not murder me?
Help, help, ho!
LORD POLONIUS
[Behind] What, ho! help, help, help!
HAMLET
[Drawing] How now! a rat? Dead, for a ducat, dead! (thinks he has heard Claudius approaching, draws his sword)

Makes a pass through the arras
(stabs Polonius thinking it is Claudius)
LORD POLONIUS
[Behind] O, I am slain!
Falls and dies
QUEEN GERTRUDE
O me, what hast thou done?
HAMLET
Nay, I know not:
Is it the king?
QUEEN GERTRUDE
O, what a rash and bloody deed is this!
HAMLET
A bloody deed! almost as bad, good mother,
As kill a king, and marry with his brother.
I admit that was morally deplorable, but who are you to talk?
QUEEN GERTRUDE
As kill a king!
HAMLET
Ay, lady, 'twas my word.
(wants to make sure “the king” is dead)
Lifts up the array and discovers POLONIUS
Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell!
I took thee for thy better: take thy fortune;
Thou find'st to be too busy is some danger.
Had you minded your own business you may still be alive.
(To Gertrude)Leave wringing of your hands: peace! sit you down,
And let me wring your heart; for so I shall,
If it be made of penetrable stuff,
If damned custom have not brass'd it so
That it is proof and bulwark against sense.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
What have I done, that thou darest wag thy tongue
In noise so rude against me?
HAMLET
Such an act
That blurs the grace and blush of modesty,
Calls virtue hypocrite, takes off the rose
From the fair forehead of an innocent love
And sets a blister there, makes marriage-vows
As false as dicers' oaths: O, such a deed
As from the body of contraction plucks
The very soul, and sweet religion makes
A rhapsody of words: heaven's face doth glow:
Yea, this solidity and compound mass,
With tristful visage, as against the doom,
Is thought-sick at the act.
What you have done invalidates your virtue.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Ay me, what act,
That roars so loud, and thunders in the index?
I know what you’re talking about, but I don’t want to discuss it.
HAMLET
Look here, upon this picture, and on this,
The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.
See, what a grace was seated on this brow;
Hyperion's curls; the front of Jove himself;
An eye like Mars, to threaten and command;
A station like the herald Mercury
New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill;
A combination and a form indeed,
Where every god did seem to set his seal,
To give the world assurance of a man:
This was your husband. How dare you do such a thing to my father. Look you now, what follows:
Here is your husband; like a mildew'd ear,
Blasting his wholesome brother. Have you eyes?
Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed,
And batten on this moor? Ha! have you eyes?
How can you not see how wrong this is?
You cannot call it love; for at your age
The hey-day in the blood is tame, it's humble,
And waits upon the judgment: and what judgment
Would step from this to this? Sense, sure, you have,
Else could you not have motion; but sure, that sense
Is apoplex'd; for madness would not err,
Nor sense to ecstasy was ne'er so thrall'd
But it reserved some quantity of choice,
To serve in such a difference. Love was clearly not the motive so you therefore must completely lack any semblance of a moral compass. What devil was't
That thus hath cozen'd you at hoodman-blind?
Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight,
Ears without hands or eyes, smelling sans all,
Or but a sickly part of one true sense
Could not so mope.
O shame! where is thy blush? You must have been possessed. Rebellious hell,
If thou canst mutine in a matron's bones,
To flaming youth let virtue be as wax,
And melt in her own fire: proclaim no shame
When the compulsive ardour gives the charge,
Since frost itself as actively doth burn
And reason panders will.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
O Hamlet, speak no more:
Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul;
And there I see such black and grained spots
As will not leave their tinct.
I know this is bad and I don’t want to discuss it.
HAMLET
Nay, but to live
In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed,
Stew'd in corruption, honeying and making love
Over the nasty sty,--
QUEEN GERTRUDE
O, speak to me no more;
These words, like daggers, enter in mine ears;
No more, sweet Hamlet!
HAMLET
A murderer and a villain;
A slave that is not twentieth part the tithe
Of your precedent lord; a vice of kings;
A cutpurse of the empire and the rule,
That from a shelf the precious diadem stole,
And put it in his pocket!
QUEEN GERTRUDE
No more!
HAMLET
A king of shreds and patches,--
Enter Ghost
(sees and adresses the ghost)
Save me, and hover o'er me with your wings,
You heavenly guards! What would your gracious figure?
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Alas, he's mad!
He’s talking to himself.
HAMLET
Do you not come your tardy son to chide,
That, lapsed in time and passion, lets go by
The important acting of your dread command? Have you come to mock me because I lost the nerve to do as you commanded? O, say!
Ghost
Do not forget: this visitation
Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.
I’m here to encourage you.
But, look, amazement on thy mother sits:
O, step between her and her fighting soul:
Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works:
Speak to her, Hamlet.
She knows the error of her ways.
HAMLET
How is it with you, lady?
Seriously, what is your deal?
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Alas, how is't with you,
That you do bend your eye on vacancy
And with the incorporal air do hold discourse?
Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep;
And, as the sleeping soldiers in the alarm,
Your bedded hair, like life in excrements,
Starts up, and stands on end. O gentle son,
Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper
Sprinkle cool patience. Whereon do you look?
Why are you talking to yourself? What are you looking at?
HAMLET
On him, on him! (points to the ghost) Look you, how pale he glares!
His form and cause conjoin'd, preaching to stones,
Would make them capable. (said to Gertrude)Do not look upon me; (said to the ghost)
Lest with this piteous action you convert
My stern effects: then what I have to do
Will want true colour; tears perchance for blood.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
To whom do you speak this?
HAMLET
Do you see nothing there?
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Nothing at all; yet all that is I see.
HAMLET
Nor did you nothing hear?
QUEEN GERTRUDE
No, nothing but ourselves.
HAMLET
Why, look you there! look, how it steals away!
My father, in his habit as he lived!
Look, where he goes, even now, out at the portal!
Exit Ghost
QUEEN GERTRUDE
This the very coinage of your brain:
This bodiless creation ecstasy
Is very cunning in.
You’re trying to make me feel guilty by making things up.
HAMLET
Ecstasy!
My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time,
And makes as healthful music: it is not madness
That I have utter'd: bring me to the test,
And I the matter will re-word; which madness
Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace,
Lay not that mattering unction to your soul,
That not your trespass, but my madness speaks:
It will but skin and film the ulcerous place,
Whilst rank corruption, mining all within,
Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven;
Repent what's past; avoid what is to come;
And do not spread the compost on the weeds,
To make them ranker. Forgive me this my virtue;
For in the fatness of these pursy times
Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg,
Yea, curb and woo for leave to do him good.
Confess and end this sinful behavior because I know that you’re better than this.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain.
You’re breaking my heart.
HAMLET
O, throw away the worser part of it,
And live the purer with the other half.
Good night: but go not to mine uncle's bed;
Assume a virtue, if you have it not.
That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat,
Of habits devil, is angel yet in this,
That to the use of actions fair and good
He likewise gives a frock or livery,
That aptly is put on. Refrain to-night,
And that shall lend a kind of easiness
To the next abstinence: the next more easy;
For use almost can change the stamp of nature,
And either [ ] the devil, or throw him out
With wondrous potency. Once more, good night:
And when you are desirous to be bless'd,
I'll blessing beg of you. For this same lord,
Pointing to POLONIUS
I do repent I’ll confess to killing him if you stop sleeping with my sleazy uncle: but heaven hath pleased it so,
To punish me with this and this with me,
That I must be their scourge and minister.
I will bestow him, and will answer well
The death I gave him. So, again, good night.
I must be cruel, only to be kind:
Thus bad begins and worse remains behind.
One word more, good lady.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
What shall I do?
HAMLET
Not this, by no means, that I bid you do:
Let the bloat king tempt you again to bed;
Pinch wanton on your cheek; call you his mouse;
And let him, for a pair of reechy kisses,
Or paddling in your neck with his damn'd fingers,
Make you to ravel all this matter out,
That I essentially am not in madness,
But mad in craft. 'Twere good you let him know;
For who, that's but a queen, fair, sober, wise,
Would from a paddock, from a bat, a gib,
Such dear concernings hide? Tell him that I’m crafty and not crazy because he’ll listen to you who would do so?
No, in despite of sense and secrecy,
Unpeg the basket on the house's top.
Let the birds fly, and, like the famous ape,
To try conclusions, in the basket creep,
And break your own neck down.
QUEEN GERTRUDE
Be thou assured, if words be made of breath,
And breath of life, I have no life to breathe
What thou hast said to me.
I have nothing to say to that.

A Family Affair

Upon finishing “Antigone”, I realized that Sophocles had masterfully created a tragic ending for both of the central characters. Whether the reader takes the side of Antigone or Creon, the ending will be depressing either way. Ironically, the ending could also be seen as somewhat comedic for the same reason since the “villain” (depending on who the reader sides with) also meets an unfortunate end. Just as Creon realized the error of his ways, he finds Antigone already dead and soon loses his son and wife. Sophocles provides a throughout examination of civic duty versus duty to one’s family because both Creon and Antigone are conflicted.

As king, Creon has the duty to act in the best interests of his people. By issuing the edict, he hopes to deter his subjects from instigating civil war in the future because it is so destructive to the community. Although, Polyneices is his nephew and Antigone is both his neice and future daughter-in-law. In order to do what he thinks is best for his subjects, he pushes the boundaries of human authority. As Tereisias says, Creon’s crime is putting one who belongs with the dead among the living and one who belongs with the living among the dead. He leaves Polyneices to rot in the elements and seals Antigone in a tomb.

Antigone is in a particularly precarious position because she has both civic and familial allegiance to Creon. He is her uncle, future father-in-law, and her king. Rightly so, she realizes that her duty to her immediate family (Polyneices) and her duty to the gods supercedes civic responsibilities. Antigone does not merely ignore Creon’s edict, she breaks it with resolute intention. She carries out an act of civil disobedience by breaking the law and fully accepting the punishment in order to show Creon that he is overstepping his authority as king.

A central theme of “Antigone” is well-illustrated in the episode of South Park where Stan Marsh discovers that his father is a member of the “The Hare Club for Men”, a secret society that protects the bloodline of Saint Peter who was actually a rabbit. They claim that Jesus put a rabbit in charge of the church because no human can speak for god or all of his subjects. Creon defies the will of both the gods and his people by making the edict. Therefore, if Creon were a rabbit, perhaps Thebes would not be such a tragic place. (408)

Poem!

To Pray - Terri Phillips

I hold my hands
so tightly together
they begin to sweat.
The skin cracks and peels
from the center of my palms.
Two tiny baby chickens
crawl out from the opening
and stand, still wet,
in my hands.
One is true love
and the other
is a big fancy car.
Amen