Macbeth
Startled the living
Daylights out of me, they did,
Those bulldozers at the forest’s edge,
Blades down like the fallen
Chins of men heavily sleeping,
Snoring, but ready to wake
With a sooty hack and roar,
Shaking me in my rooted stance,
Big men, sod-dewed, root-bearded men,
Men with a heavy tread,
Men that come and do what they have to do
No matter what it means to you.
Men who bite off more than they can chew,
Then chew it.
Lady Macbeth
Yes, I would like that banana.
Yes, I see it is the last one.
Are you saving it for someone?
Or are you going to toss it
In the kettle with everything else?
You know what happens to bananas.
See, that one’s already black.
Soon, it will be mushy
And of little use to anyone.
No, I would not like to be thought greedy.
Yes, I know I have no more claim
To the banana than the next person.
But, weird ladies, I am pregnant,
And that banana is what I desire to eat.
Desdemona
Good Sir, it’s midnight.
Do you know where your moles are?
Did they slide between the sheets? Between us?
Or, leery Moor, did they slink from the shadow
Of your arm to darken the hollows
Of my drowsing face? (Don’t kid yourself.
I’m not asleep. I have never been.)
Have they been spotted by your scars, slashes
As pale as faces cracking a door?
Are they watching Letterman, too?
Or have they run off with some lifted brow?
The rumor in a idle stare?
Do they know that when they return
They’ll not find us here?
Richard III
Don’t tell me you don’t see the wall.
For God’s sake, don’t give me that.
How do you think the red gate
Manages to hang as it does,
Banging open and shut
On one hinge all day, every day?
What keeps the leaky roof
From crashing down
Upon your back?
What keeps the horizon at bay?
Holds out out and in in? I to I? Am to am?
What’s as long as you remember?
As far as you know?
Don’t tell me you don’t remember the quarry.