J. Zimmerman

Elsinore 1:1

depth of winter / the expensive radiance / of strawberries

The apparition beats through the cold from his burial bed.

icicle rapier / plummeting from the battlement / into his night

Eyes eclipsed, father of a disastrous empire, he fades back toward his grave. The hours hasten this lofty king from his violent life.

hoot of an owl / wisdom fading / to black

The soldiers imagine mockery and take offense but the ghost leaves all their questions to trouble the quiet. They cannot strike the pale spirit tonight, cannot reach him.

snowdrops / at the toe of the castle wall / the whiteness of bone

They tremble for a treasure that he might unfold but they cannot wrench out. What is it that stalks warlike away?

Note: Some words in the prose are sampled from William Shakespeare's Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 1.