Expansive Poetry & Music Online Poem

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Chad Hamlet
   by Arthur Mortensen
   Copyright (c) 2000 by Arthur Mortensen
 

A vote or not a vote, that is the quibble:
Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer
Results of ballots that cost us all a fortune
Or to file suit against the law,
And, by opposing, end it.  To cry, to weep
No more, and once asleep to say we end
The heartache and the most unnatural shock
Our ears were gored by -- is a new election
Devoutly to be wished?  Or to fall asleep,
And hope this was a dream? Ay, there's the rub,
For in those hours of dreams what chads may come
When we have shuffled off to ranch and Knoxville,
What dimpled, hanging chads?  There's no respect
In such calamities, just second life,
And who's not bushed by all this paper gore?
The oppressor's wrong; the proud man's tiresome;
The pang they prize the most is law's delay!
O! you insolent officeholder, why spur
Your eternity of being on the make
When you yourself might give us a quiet break
With a concession?  Who should these two bear?
There's grunt and sweat enough in this hard life.
Is there dread of something after election,
Some undiscovered country from whose bourn
No candidate returns? It puzzles George Will
And makes ABC broadcast more Florida ills
Than fly to others Jennings knows not of.
Thus unsconcious, cowards are they all
While restless natives, seeking resolution,
And sick and tired of their pale cast of thought,
See no great prize from all this pith and moment
And soon regard the country turned awry,
And dump that game for action.