INDECISION

Now might I do it pat, now he is praying:

And now I’ll do’t.  And so he goes to heaven,

And so am I revenged.  That would be scanned:

A villain kills my father, and for that,

I, his foul son, do this same villain send

To heaven.

O, this is hire and salary, not revenge.

William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 3.

Our government has been accused of indecision and procrastination over its handling of this pandemic. Did they decide on the lockdown too late?  To test or not to test.  Have they even got an exit strategy?  

Indecision is one of the many themes that run through Shakespeare’s Hamlet.  The quote at the top of the page is part of one of Hamlet’s many soliloquys, here he considers whether to kill the king, his uncle, as he kneels praying.

Regular readers of my work will be aware that in addition to writing about Hamlet, I frequently write Haikus and the occasional Tanka.  Another Japanese poetry form is the Sedoka.  Sedokas are essentially two Katauta poems joined together.  Katauta’s have a syllable count of 5/7/7 and are generally unrhymed.  In a Sedoka each three lines should address the same subject but perhaps from a different perspective.

I like Sedoka’s, as really you can join up lots of Katauta’s to make super long Sedoka’s all with the same syllable count.  Just for effect I have rhymed mine.

INDECISION

Avoiding the heat.

We’re staying home – the new norm,

taking shelter from the storm.

Crack! a cry – a splash.

Floating in insanity.

She’s no exit strategy.

Cops cruise empty streets,

but they won’t arrest the clown.

We’re stuck in fuckin lockdown.

Who asks the question’s?

There’s no balance to be found.

We’re stuck in fuckin lockdown.

© Tom Kerr 2020, all rights reserved