Something Wicked This Way Comes
How we all love a stage villain.
We’ll all stand up for the bastards
As long as they have the chutzpah.
The knowing look, the shoulder shrug,
The Who says I play the villain?
And we smile at the audacity,
The determination to prove their worth.
And even when they call on hell
To fill them with upmost cruelty,
Or use the holy word to mask their ends,
We gasp and gape. They have our full attention.
True, our stomachs turn as bloody eyes
Are thrust across the stage, an innocent’s seduced,
Or a King is murdered in his sleep.
But when in the final act, they challenge all –
A witches’ prophesy, a battle lost,
Or roar defiance and threaten revenge,
We stand and applaud
As they come forward and grin at us.
Cross Gartered
Misunderstood
Malvolio
Pompous – perhaps
But genuine
In loyalty
Meticulous
In stewardship
His sombre suit
Reflecting his
Sober values
Much better than
The drunken sot
Simpering fool
And harridan
Who abuse him
Humiliate
And torture him
Because he loved.
And who’s not been
A Fool for Love?
Laertes
I am Hamlet, the Dane!
He yelled as he leapt
Into my sister’s grave.
Such arrogance.
As if he were the only Dane
Who grieved. Who suffered.
Get thee to a nunnery.
Such cruel words.
She doted on him.
She sat in his arms
Watching the play
As he made obscene jokes about her.
It’s said he called my dad
A rat before he stabbed him
And laughing lugged his corpse
To some secret cupboard.
It broke my sister. She turned
To madness. To suicide.
And now he seeks to salve my hurt
With some pointless fencing match.
He’ll get my point
With all the venom I can muster.
The King will see that he is drugged
And I will be revenged.
