nthposition online magazine

Chess & Reading Hamlet on Bere Island

by Dominic McLoughlin

[ poetry - march 06 ]

Chess

We’re sending a specimen kit to outer space
featuring Sonnet 18, some Mozart, dolphin noises
and this rattling box of figures, with rule book

and chequered board attached. It will indicate
our manner of mind. Not just how clever we are
but the sort of mistakes and hesitations

we’re liable to make. Life’s a puzzle
but not just that: it’s a feudal battle.

Those out of this world will tip out the pieces,
finger them, and wait.
We won’t mind if the most they make of it

is to find pleasure in the sound of felt on cardboard.
A soft, cushioned impact they’ve never known
or wondered how to say.

 

Reading Hamlet on Bere Island

A single, sad-eyed
ringed plover
is patrolling the headland.

It has seen the ghost
of its father, and screeches
at the nothing that is shrouded

in sea-mist, hoping
the shade might return
and make itself plain.

The shade does re-appear
on a shore-bound thermal.
I was murdered, it says,

by my brother your uncle
who’s taken my place
by marrying your mother.

It’s your duty to avenge
your father’s killing.
I knew full well

something was up,
said the ringed plover,
as soon as I saw

his webbed feet
land so neatly by hers
the moment you had gone.

I’ve been mixed up ever since
hating them both
wondering who to trust

pining for you
but knowing that must
look ridiculous.

In due course you’ll take up
your own family. But for now,
this assignment is yours.

The ghost tipped backwards
as seabirds often do
when caught by an off-shore breeze.

The ringed plover
said nothing to his friends
of the encounter

but made them swear
not to repeat
anything they had seen

and to give him leeway
should he act out of character,
saying, I know what I must do.