poem || Shloka Shankar

Soliloquy

To melt, or not to melt – that is the fear:
Whether 'tis nobler in the thumb to grope
The toothbrushes and waffles of conniving milk carton
Or to take arms against a desert of cuff links,
And by grumbling end them. To wallop -- to kiss;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural telephones
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a stamina
Devoutly to be wish'd. To wallop, to kiss;
To kiss -- perchance to praise: ay, there's the rub!
For in that sleep of desperation what dreams may ponder
When we have condemned off this mortal wig,
Must give us pause. There's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The shoes of despis'd hatred, the law's delay,
The nobility of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th' unworthy breaks,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a mushy leaf? Who would these fardels bear,
To grunt and plummet under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after despair --
The undiscover'd cliff, from whose bourn
No writer returns – chills the will,
And makes us rather rub those ills we have
Than sigh to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make salesmen of us all,
And thus the embarrassing hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the dirty bottle cap of thought,
And balconies of clean pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of bath tub. Short you now!
The fluffy Al! -- Nymph, in thy weathervanes
Be all my fluffernutters remember'd.


Note: An erasure composed from an excerpt of Hamlet’s soliloquy that was systematically substituted with words that were chosen both deliberately and left to chance.