BOSOLA THE MALCONTENT: AN IMAGINARY CONVERSATION (On reading John Webster’s THE DUCHESS OF MALFI)

It would be wonderful

To watch

The bard in you

Entertaining a gathering of

Savants

With your verses,

In Seneca’s

Favourite copse

Or

Webster’s Gothic residence!

It would be wonderful

If I could see  

A rebel emerge

From your flaws,  

And shake up

The facades of

Snobbery and deceit

With your wild guffaws

It would be wonderful

If I could see you

Guising as a clown

Carrying a quiver

Loaded with  

Arrows of witticism

Targeting torrents of

Imbecile swagger and

Manipulative priggishness

Disgraced scholar!

Learned hoodlum from

Padua!  

It’s rather saddening

Your father believed

You could do the best

Only as a

Restless malcontent  

Yet you are perhaps

The sole member of

Your clan

Who has a philosophy

For taking lives,

And the courage to

Accept that it is

Always better to

Have a philosophy

For saving lives

To justify the end

© DEEPAK DARSHAK  

HAMLET'S INSANITY

‘Hamlet’s insanity
Puzzles everyone
In Denmark and 
Elsewhere — 
Claudius, 
Gertrude, 
Horatio, 
Polonius, 
Ophelia, 
Laertes, 
Rosencrantz, 
Guildenstern, 
Fortinbras…
All except 
The ghost of 
The dead king
Who knows that 
The lackadaisical, forgetful prince 
Won’t avenge his death 
Unless he is 
Prodded into 
Shunning the standards of 
Sanity and 
And losing thereby 
The world’s good old faith’ 
© DEEPAK DARSHAK