—Anonymous Photos of Her Majesty’s Swans on the Thames
—Poems by Thomas Goff, Carmichael, CA
SE OFFENDENDO
In Hamlet, vengeful-minded Danish prince
looms over guilty poisoner at prayer.
The kneeling king admits truth, will not mince
with smooth evasions his role as a slayer.
How does he speak? What if this curséd hand
were thicker than itself with brother’s blood?
Such imagery, I wager, would not stand
save from a poet stained in some such flood
of red. The author of this drama knew
how shocks of outrage press the rapier point
to skewer human skin, strike vein, imbrue
hand, wrist, arm crimson. What oil could anoint
with second innocence our young De Vere?
Rinsed in black ink, that sword hand, as “Shakespeare.”
***
Baronial doublespeak: se defendendo,
how Cecil gives by legal means the slip
to Edward de Vere, acquits the slayer. No,
if Yea or Nay comes muttered out the lip
of Cecil, count on it, something below
the surface, seven-eighths under iceberg-tip,
lurks darkest. Hamlet’s term, se offendendo:
that it comes from an old Gravedigger’s mouth
should clue us to a burial of sorts.
Ophelia drowns—a suicide, and not.
If we can swallow that much fluid truth,
why not claim, Eagerly into the fencing sword
ran the rash youth…Two burials, in one plot?
But see how black the ink with which they paint
Edward de Vere. A man of violence,
bray Shakespeare critics, bray the historians.
Ignore how honest-red the crimson taint
bleeds into the admissions, when alone,
of villains who soliloquize their guilt
with agonizing wishes to atone
they know by course of choice can’t be fulfilled.
De Vere felt shame in several different forms:
he thought his first wife an adulteress;
he played in “motley” counter to social norms;
yet foremost, this first time he so transgressed?
Ben Jonson killed, yet stands excused from shame
—whose hide’s most callous, oft bears least of blame.
***
Polonius at home: Lord Burghley’s house.
Edward de Vere lodged in it: a Queen’s ward.
The greatest of grandees (with tart-tongued spouse).
The boy “Shakespeare.” Two menfolk, each on guard.
Yet how, but by this young earl’s presence here,
will Cecil ascend to Stamford Burghley estate?
If not wed to Edward, does daughter boost Cecil in sphere?
Alas, young love will discandy, or abate.
How oft has Chief Snoop Burghley spied and skulked
on youth, devoid of all age-becoming shame?
The Burghley mode: Let Edward spend. Now mulct.
Who’s Edward? Black sheep. Lord Burghley keeps the fame.
Lord Treasurer: Revenge’s ghost is heard.
“Shakespeare” will stab you, with “no sword, but words.”
In Hamlet, vengeful-minded Danish prince
looms over guilty poisoner at prayer.
The kneeling king admits truth, will not mince
with smooth evasions his role as a slayer.
How does he speak? What if this curséd hand
were thicker than itself with brother’s blood?
Such imagery, I wager, would not stand
save from a poet stained in some such flood
of red. The author of this drama knew
how shocks of outrage press the rapier point
to skewer human skin, strike vein, imbrue
hand, wrist, arm crimson. What oil could anoint
with second innocence our young De Vere?
Rinsed in black ink, that sword hand, as “Shakespeare.”
***
Baronial doublespeak: se defendendo,
how Cecil gives by legal means the slip
to Edward de Vere, acquits the slayer. No,
if Yea or Nay comes muttered out the lip
of Cecil, count on it, something below
the surface, seven-eighths under iceberg-tip,
lurks darkest. Hamlet’s term, se offendendo:
that it comes from an old Gravedigger’s mouth
should clue us to a burial of sorts.
Ophelia drowns—a suicide, and not.
If we can swallow that much fluid truth,
why not claim, Eagerly into the fencing sword
ran the rash youth…Two burials, in one plot?
But see how black the ink with which they paint
Edward de Vere. A man of violence,
bray Shakespeare critics, bray the historians.
Ignore how honest-red the crimson taint
bleeds into the admissions, when alone,
of villains who soliloquize their guilt
with agonizing wishes to atone
they know by course of choice can’t be fulfilled.
De Vere felt shame in several different forms:
he thought his first wife an adulteress;
he played in “motley” counter to social norms;
yet foremost, this first time he so transgressed?
Ben Jonson killed, yet stands excused from shame
—whose hide’s most callous, oft bears least of blame.
***
Polonius at home: Lord Burghley’s house.
Edward de Vere lodged in it: a Queen’s ward.
The greatest of grandees (with tart-tongued spouse).
The boy “Shakespeare.” Two menfolk, each on guard.
Yet how, but by this young earl’s presence here,
will Cecil ascend to Stamford Burghley estate?
If not wed to Edward, does daughter boost Cecil in sphere?
Alas, young love will discandy, or abate.
How oft has Chief Snoop Burghley spied and skulked
on youth, devoid of all age-becoming shame?
The Burghley mode: Let Edward spend. Now mulct.
Who’s Edward? Black sheep. Lord Burghley keeps the fame.
Lord Treasurer: Revenge’s ghost is heard.
“Shakespeare” will stab you, with “no sword, but words.”
DEAD INDEED
Dead indeed is the Shakespeare of orthodox biographies.
—Charlton Ogburn, in The Mysterious William Shakespeare
Discern on this ill-figured cenotaph
one slightest speck of Shakespeare’s mind, his “race”
of humane eloquence, his force of laugh
at politics’ each infamous disgrace.
Are we to believe this grocer’s countenance
our true playwright’s? Ah yes: the Stratford story
—a Stratford, London, starred by circumstance
to house a playwright lord whose works gave glory
to all that green ideal England, ruled
by one great queen in whose Thames River swam
a bird, a bard in all refinement schooled,
his name hid under a pseudonym, a sham.
Read Alexander Waugh on “Avonundum.”*
Swan-flights at Hampton Court. End of conundrum.
*Alexander Waugh, grandson of novelist Evelyn Waugh,
champion of the theory that Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of
Oxford, wrote the Shakespeare plays. Waugh is the first
person in modern times to discern, on solid evidence, that
Ben Jonson's words, "Sweet Swan of Avon!" refer to per-
formances of Shakespeare plays at Hampton Court, a
favored court theater venue: "Hampton" is a corruption
of the Latin "Avonundum," which refers to "river" but here
indicates the Thames; the abbreviated "Hampton" pronun-
ciation was common among nearby residents during and
perhaps before Elizabethan times.
In other words, "Shakespeare" was no late arrival from a
remote village, writing for the public playhouses, but an
aristocrat steeped in court theater practice.
THOU LESSER STAR
Shine forth, thou star of poets!
—Ben Jonson, in Shakespeare’s First Folio
CSU Sacramento: there I saw
Bartholomew Fair, that vivid comedy
of yours, Ben Jonson. Worthy who gave law
to poets, albeit a bawd’s obscenity
in each laugh thundered from your “mountain belly.”
While envying that subtler wit, De Vere,
you yet spun, swift as whirling “spoke and felly,”
a noble estimation of “Shakespeare.”
We fully do believe him your “Belovéd,”
your Helicon whose pool’s waters nourished art,
your art and that of all others. One drop of it
sufficient to provoke, uplift, upstart
young red-blood wits like proud steeds given rein.
In praising him, at least, you were not vain.
PENSIVE TWILIGHT
—from Four Orchestral Pieces (1912-13) by Arnold Bax
Flute duo, harp. How do we know all dawn
advents look different from all twilight fades?
Midwinter clarinet, violet, mauve, or fawn;
a languid mood no sunrise ever made.
The stop-and-start reiterating phrase
lends lightning clarities to dusk opaques.
Irish mysticism in this cloud-maze.
Transfiguring forces render sky-grey lakes
in Dublin ground day rules by horizon line.
What can be seen by full orchestral sun,
dipping its last, unites diffuse with fine.
The Wicklow Mountains, Hellfire Club, undone
in silhouette or faint embroidery.
Late flame yields to black-pearl serenity.
SMOKELESS
After Arnold Bax: portrait by Vera Bax
In Vera’s picture of you, we see no smoke.
Odd. No coiled toy-clouds upfloat from your pipe
to distort your lineaments, veil your facial type.
Briar’s empty of tamped tobacco that might choke
you in its wreathy snares, or it would cloak
your ash-blue eye-glow in fumes whose unseen snipe
infiltrates dark tars no oxygen-intake may wipe:
lung-lodgements wriggle in deeper, toke by toke.
Young scally-cap tough, mouth shut around
hand-rolled cig,
Majorca vacationer, strangling on a great log
of licorice-black cigar you and three friends find too big
to finish. Did nicotine muddy your downhill slog,
young lion turned inertially heartsore lamb,
smoke trapped in the clench
of your “Lipsbury Pinfold” clam?
_____________________
Today’s LittleNip:
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Our thanks to Tom Goff for today’s musings on the Shakespeare/Edward de Vere controversy or, as the Brits would say, “con-TRO-ver-sy”. All of which gave me occasion to post some of ER’s wonderful swan photos. For more about Her Majesty’s swans, see www.smithsonianmag.com/history/fascinating-history-british-thrones-swans-180964249/.
Need to jump-start your writing? Head over to Sac. Poetry Center tonight, 6pm, for a session of MarieWriters Generative Writing Workshop, facilitated this week by Laura Martin. Scroll down to the blue column (under the green column at the right) for info about this and other upcoming poetry events in our area—and note that more may be added at the last minute.
—Medusa
Celebrate the poetry of the swan!
Photos in this column can be enlarged by
clicking on them once, then clicking on the x
in the top right corner to come back to Medusa.
