On the Death of Ted Hughes
Ted Hughes halálára
Crow has made off with Crow
And with him his thrushes, his horses, precipices,
He went and dropped them down a chasm
Smashed feather, gut, cloak, stone
Crow left them in the Lurch
As is his wont when in a hurry
Returning later to feast on them.
He thought he'd never die
He thought Creature could
Swallow up Creator
No more poems from the Maker
Smart bird, wiseacre,
He cawed his schadenfreude
But the Lord lay heavy on his stomach
Crow slides on his belly down the ice
His paunch is slit, everted
From his grave-gut spill eye, feather
Black moods, spleen and rancour
Guilt and each link of the chain-mail
He is condemned to wear now for ever.
Even he cannot swallow so much
He'd sought to enter heaven
But found only damnation
Much like his croaking
And died in a stranger's guilty conscience
But he was resurrected
Since the wicked die twice over
His second death is not imminent
Suspicion survives the poet
The poem survives suspicion
All Crows are nostalgic for survival.
The Sign of the Goat
A Bak jegye
Mummy dear,
look, here I sit
bound to earth, under the sign of the Goat
in damp and fibrous cold,
inhaling the sunlight
so that I may row across
to you, where you live in the Fish.
The two signs are closer
than we are, we who the will
of the stars have shoved apart.
Even now you draw me to you
and far away I'm waiting
for the meeting of our houses
so we might find new strength.
Stand in the sweep of our orbits
and call me by my old name,
in words that no-one but I
can understand. That's why I'm waiting.
No-one but you can locate me.
I alone am the one seeking you.
Only you can decipher my verse,
the open cage of my bird-tongue,
this plashy swallow-twitter.
Tell me, should I drop the half of it?
Dammit.
No, look, see how neatly
We cling to each other
With conspiratorial giggles.
You come to me with rumours.
I've waited, how long I have waited:
Lay your blotched hand
half poplar, half glass on my head
my crown of five branches.
