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# Ophelia
- URL: https://www.hawkword.com/poetry/ophelia/
- Published: 2022-01-08T12:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2022-01-08T12:00:00.000Z
- Description: When love slips into madness, who's to blame? When choice is a dead end, a masquerade, when grief supplants embarrassment and shame and fate itself refuses to be stayed. When existential questions cloud the mind, unan...
- Author: A. Gee
- Tags: Poetry, Sonnet, Allpoetry Import, #Import 2026-04-25 19:56

When love slips into madness, who's to blame?  
When choice is a dead end, a masquerade,  
when grief supplants embarrassment and shame  
and fate itself refuses to be stayed.  
When existential questions cloud the mind,  
unanswerable questions, harder still.  
When there's no shred of kindness from the kind,  
and sheer despair is robbing you of will.  
Lines of affection, thin as spider silk,  
torn by dismissive, cold flick of the wrist,  
and well placed wishers of a certain ilk  
hold knives out at the ready for a twist...

When love slips into madness, who's to blame?  
Indifference and callousness lay claim.

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**Author notes:** https://allpoetry.com/contest/2796831-Ophelia