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Empathy

What’s Hecuba to me, indeed
I too have sat, unmoved
As those who’re closest to me bleed
In fact I have approved
Their suffering seems to ignite
In me a latent vice
The very nature of their plight
Adding a certain spice
The poet’s words are like a shard
A sharp, reflective glass
The portraits are forever scarred
Absorbed in their morass
The tears flow freely, stranger still
I do not wish them dry
Perhaps they’ll rid me of this chill
Perhaps, I know not why

Author notes: The passage from Hamlet: Is it not monstrous that this player here, But in a fiction, in a dream of passion, Could force his soul so to his whole conceit That, from her working, all the visage warmed, Tears in his eyes, distraction in's aspect, A broken voice, and his whole function suiting With forms to his conceit? And all for nothing, For Hecuba! What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, That he should weep for her? What would he do Had he the motive and the cue for passion That I have? He would drown the stage with tears,

Shakespeare in a Box

Oh, Shakespeare, may your works forever charm
Attracting lovers through both time and space.
The ones that read your sonnets, arm in arm
And those that pepper writings with your lace.

Could some AI, a future distant still
Acquire your ability with words?
And generate, with its robotic quill
Words flying off the page like courting birds?

I can’t decide if we would laugh or cry
Would such a talent drive us to despair?
To find out a machine, we know not why
Can be your sole inheritor, your heir?

I do not know, but I do surely hope
if it comes close it's not a misanthrope

Author notes: Elizabethan sonnet https://allpoetry.com/contest/2783325-The-Purveyors-of-Medieval-Prosody---When-I-

Made in China

I need to go to Chinatown”
I tell my closest friend
"An errand for my folks – don’t frown
you know they cannot fend
We’ll get it done and then we’re free
we’ll hit a Village bar
Perhaps it’ll turn into a spree
and we can take their car!”

We’re seventeen, so car, and drive
are words beyond compare
We get to town, park by some dive
There’s duck sauce in the air
I have my fake ID with me
Besides, no one will card
Those were the days when we were free
Yep, total disregard

I see a small shop cross the street
Can’t read the hieroglyphs
The tell take snake sign, though, that’s it
A pharmacy for sniffs
We both walk in, I take the note
My father gave me, and
-- here really starts the anecdote
“Does someone understand?”

“Hey, white boy, show me what you got”
Her voice clear as a bell
Her face, what can I say, she’s hot!
As if you couldn’t tell
The piece of paper in my hand
Is in Chinese of course
I hand it to her, and just stand
My voice suddenly hoarse

She looks at it, and starts to laugh
So beautiful, but wait
The kind of laugh that cuts in half
My heart doubles its rate
“wwwwhat’s wrong”, I blurt out, in a rush
What was this cursed chore?
“That’s a request for Chinese Brush
That what you came here for?”

Still not a clue, I’m like, “it’s paste?
For teeth or for your gums?”
She laughs again, my god, that waist
My ears do feel like drums
“It is for men, no, not for teeth”
She tells me it’s a scam
It’s then I wish the ground beneath
Would take me as I am

“It’s for my dad”, I stammer then
Will she believe my truth?
“I didn’t know it was for men
I thought it’s for his tooth”
She laughs again, bit kinder now
And hands me a small box
I pay, I don’t remember how
And run like from the pox

Been forty years, I am a dad
A grandfather of four
But let me say, I’ve never had
A more embarrassing chore
Wow forty years, I’m miles away
But I still count my luck
Though overweight, and mostly gray
Not been back to that block

Author notes: This is absolutely a true story, happened in New York City, in 1981. For those curious, this is a SFW search https://www.google.com/search?q=what+is+chinese+brush

Winter Hunt

I silently invoke Diana’s name
and ask her blessing for the arrow’s path.
Old habits dying hard, I know my aim;
the goddess’ old stag I seek, her wrath

does not deter me and my bow is strung.
He walks among the trees, his crown unbowed.
I’ll take him through his heart, or through his lung.
Diana, do you hear me, I am proud!

I need no benediction for my hunt.
What are those bells of laughter that I hear?
No matter, she can’t make my arrow blunt.
I need a single shot, I’ll need no spear.

You’re dead, old king, the arrow sings in flight
Its peacock feathers startling the snow
The shot rings true. I scream: "It’s done!" as bright
red foam escapes my lips and falls below.

My huntress, you are savoring your kill
Your triumph seeming total as my breath
grows shallow, but know this: it was my will.
And now, no longer yours, I welcome death.

Author notes: Diana (the Roman version of Artemis), virgin goddess of the hunt https://www.worldhistory.org/artemis/