Desdemona's Lament

Poems on Othello

Here are 5 short poems I wrote about a year ago for a school project on Othello. I wanted to write them from what I believe to be Desdemona’s perspective. I was very moved by the tragedy of Othello, and I hope to do her brightness justice in some small way. I am no Shakespeare, however I hope to reflect his light onto someone I feel may have been overlooked as a character. To observe Desdemona as a flat character would be to undermine the subtleties of Shakespeare’s language that make him so cleverly fantastic. The structure of each poem is meant to loosely reflect her mental state through each act. My biggest goal in writing these poems for Desdemona was to try and capture the complex nature of love, and how even after her death, love is what persisted.

Act 1

I have never heard such wonders

As those that fall from his lips

Of the dangers he had passed

And the atrocities he had witnessed

He was more a man than many

Though he claims to be rude in his speech

The “Moor” of who they damn to fire

Is the one who grants my soul its peace

I long to go where he will go

And tend to him where he may lay

And if my divided duty banishes him to the night

I will long for him by day

Act 2

My dearest of lords, oh my soul’s joy

The powers of heaven could not forbid

the discord that our heart’s employ

You see strength in my depth, not all can

My love could not be kept more safe

By more noble and more valiant man

But I can hear whispers in the trees

Of lowly robbers to the west

And eyes glowing green to the East

Does he see the eyes, does he see their green?

Does he hear the monsters

I thought lived only in dreams

Act 3

Worlds fade to nothing when I look at him,

Yet he seems to stare straight through me

He asks to have just a little to himself

When all of myself I gave him willingly

I paint him with my brightest colors

With hues that could never capture it all

We learned to speak a secret language

That now he cannot seem to recall

There are parts of him I no longer know

There are shades I cannot see

Something someone else has painted

Something glowing, something green

I deny thee nothing

He denies me nothing

He denies me something

I allow me nothing

Act 4

I never fight fire with fire

I have let myself burn instead

Rather than prove myself worthy

Of being the very thing they claimed worth burning

My integrity is not small

It has simply lived in the shadow of femininity for too long

I have been loyal and kind and a good girl

I have not deserved this

I have not deserved this

I was fair paper, a mostly good book

That someone wrote “whore” upon

With that same hideous glowing green

How can he not see

Sing all a green willow

She cries beneath the trees

I wonder if she saw it too

That hideous glowing green

Act 5

Commend me to my kind lord

For he is not guilty of this deed

It was I myself, I who take the blame

For not keeping him from the green

Guiltless I knew not, but yet I felt fear

I feared the man that once held me dear

I hear him, now, I think he calls

On this side of things, his transgressions seem small

He had not deserved this

We had not deserved this

The green lives on below

Lurking in their midst

Is this now our legacy

What we will leave behind

That the guilty defeat the innocent

And green evil devours the kind