What Is the Matter?

"What is the matter, my Lord?"
Said Polonius to Hamlet, in the alcove reading.
And he answered:

"NOTHING.
A zero sum vacuum.
A smallness. A dot.
Angels crowded on a pin,
Dust and ashes and taxes."

"No, no, my Lord"
Polonius cried,
"I meant the matter you read."
"Ah," quoth Hamlet, "then you address:

MATTERS.
Dreams in stone.
Vows fulfilled.
Oak-tree visions across a river.
Soul-searches, love-quests, and truth.

What is this quintessence of dust?"
Asked the youth,
Declaring disinterest, despair.
With subject plus verb he dismisses the world.
"NOTHING MATTERS.
So there."

The grammar magician defies apathy.
Waving a well-placed hyphen and
Planting a colon on the earth, he
Transmutes unconcern and indifference.

NOTHING-MATTERS:
Insignificant infinitesimal insubstantial nits.
Now you may proceed to list
All the pointless little bits
The washing dishes shushy slush
That puts your spirit in a ditch.

Begone! Begone!
Now feast upon
More pithy, weighty stuff -
The solid-liquid-gas,
The life-and-marrow mass
That
Matters.

MATTERS.