Unseen

Unseen

 

 

Hamlet’s mother
and Lady Macbeth:
neither saw the impolitic ghost.

Gentlemen, be assured:
if you live, if you die,
women pay
no attention to you.

 

 

–Tom Riley

Macbeth and Wife

Macbeth and Wife

 

“And be these juggling fiends no more believ’d,
That palter with us in a double sense;
That keep the word of promise to our ear,
And break it to our hope….”

They thought advice would help them master time.

They thought command would help them conquer fate.

The three uncanny sisters’ yen to rhyme

Made double-subtle sayings resonate

With bogus clarity.  Rather than wait

And see these bright predictions face the test,

The two conspirators, meant to be great,

Erred greatly in the way they judged was best.

She summoned hateful spirits to her breast

And gave suck to a brood of empty acts.

He murdered sleep – and knew at last no rest.

He learned on his last day the baleful facts.

And, after she was dead and all was known,

He faced the words he’d trusted in alone.

 

 

–Tom Riley