Free New and Selected Poems by Ted Hughes

Heaven,
    And man, disgusted with God,
    Turned towards Eve,
    Things looked like falling apart.
     
    But Crow Crow
    Crow nailed them together,
    Nailing Heaven and earth together –
     
    So man cried, but with God’s voice.
    And God bled, but with man’s blood.
     
    Then Heaven and earth creaked at the joint
    Which became gangrenous and stank –
    A horror beyond redemption.
     
    The agony did not diminish.
     
    Man could not be man nor God God.
     
    The agony
     
    Grew.
     
    Crow
     
    Grinned
     
    Crying: ‘This is my Creation,’
     
    Flying the black flag of himself.
     

Revenge Fable
     
     
    There was a person
    Could not get rid of his mother
    As if he were her topmost twig.
    So he pounded and hacked at her

    With numbers and equations and laws
    Which he invented and called truth.
    He investigated, incriminated
    And penalized her, like Tolstoy,
    Forbidding, screaming and condemning,
    Going for her with a knife,
    Obliterating her with disgusts
    Bulldozers and detergents
    Requisitions and central heating
    Rifles and whisky and bored sleep. 
     
    With all her babes in her arms, in ghostly weepings, She died.
     
    His head fell off like a leaf.
     

Bedtime Anecdote
     
     
    There was a man
    Who got up from a bed that was no bed
    Who pulled on his clothes that were no clothes
    (A million years whistling in his ear)
    And he pulled on shoes that were no shoes
    Carefully jerking the laces tight – and tighter
    To walk over floors that were no floor
    Down stairs that were no stairs
    Past pictures that were no pictures
    To pause
    To remember and forget the night’s dreams that were no dreams
     
    And there was the cloud, primeval, the prophet;
    There was the rain, its secret writing, the water-kernel
    Of the tables of the sun;
    And there was the light with its loose rant;
    There were the birch trees, insisting and urging.

    And the wind, reproach upon reproach.
    At the table he cupped his eyes in his hands
    As if to say grace
     
    Avoiding his reflection in the mirror
    Huddled to read news that was no news
    (A million years revolving on his stomach)
    He entered the circulation of his life
    But stopped reading feeling the weight of his hand
    In the hand that was no hand
    And he did not know what to do or where to begin
    To live the day that was no day
     
    And Brighton was a picture
    The British Museum was a picture
    The battleship off Flamborough was a picture
    And the drum-music the ice in the glass the mouths
    Stretched open in laughter
    That was no laughter
    Were what was left of a picture
     
    In a book
    Under a monsoon downpour
    In a ruinous mountain hut
     
    From which years ago his body was lifted by a leopard.
     

Apple Tragedy
     
     
    So on the seventh day
    The serpent rested.
    God came up to him.
    ‘I’ve invented a new game,’ he said. 
     
    The serpent stared in surprise
    At this interloper.
    But God said: ‘You see this apple?
    I squeeze it and look – Cider.’
     

    The serpent had a good drink
    And curled up into a questionmark.
    Adam drank and said: ‘Be my god.’
    Eve drank and opened her legs
     
    And called to the cockeyed serpent
    And gave him a wild time.
    God ran and told Adam
    Who in drunken rage tried to hang himself in the orchard.
     
    The serpent tried to explain, crying ‘Stop’
    But drink was splitting his syllable
    And Eve started screeching: ‘Rape! Rape!’
    And stamping on his head.
     
    Now whenever the snake appears she screeches
    ‘Here it comes again! Help! O help!’
    Then Adam smashes a chair on its head,
    And God says: ‘I am well pleased’
     
    And everything goes to hell.
     

Crow’s Last Stand
     
     
    Burning
                    burning
                               burning
                                          there was finally something
    The sun could not burn, that it had rendered
    Everything down to – a final obstacle
    Against which it raged and charred
     
    And rages and chars

    Limpid among the