Free New and Selected Poems by Ted Hughes Page B

vicious, snatched
    The focus of his eyes
    She gave it the steadiness of her hand
    He gave it the strength of his spine it ate everything
     
    It began to cry what could they give it
    They gave it their calendars it bolted their diaries
    They gave it their sleep it gobbled their dreams
    Even while they slept
    It ate their bodyskin and the muscle beneath
    They gave it vows its teeth clashed its starvation
    Through every word they uttered
     
    It found snakes under the floor it ate them
    It found a spider horror
    In their palms and ate it
     
    They gave it double smiles and blank silence
    It chewed holes in their carpets
    They gave it logic
    It ate the colour of their hair
    They gave it every argument that would come
    They gave it shouting and yelling they meant it
    It ate the faces of their children
    They gave it their photograph albums they gave it their records
     

    It ate the colour of the sun
    They gave it a thousand letters they gave it money
    It ate their future complete it waited for them
    Staring and starving
    They gave it screams it had gone too far
    It ate into their brains
    It ate the roof
    It ate lonely stone it ate wind crying famine
    It went furiously off
     
    They wept they called it back it could have everything
    It stripped out their nerves chewed chewed flavourless
    It bit at their numb bodies they did not resist
    It bit into their blank brains they hardly knew
     
    It moved bellowing
    Through a ruin of starlight and crockery
     
    It drew slowly off they could not move
     
    It went far away they could not speak
     

How Water Began to Play
     
     
    Water wanted to live
    It went to the sun it came weeping back
    Water wanted to live
    It went to the trees they burned it came weeping back
    They rotted it came weeping back
    Water wanted to live
    It went to the flowers they crumpled it came weeping back
    It wanted to live
    It went to the womb it met blood
    It came weeping back
    It went to the womb it met knife
    It came weeping back

    It went to the womb it met maggot and rottenness
    It came weeping back it wanted to die
     
    It went to time it went through the stone door
    It came weeping back
    It went searching through all space for nothingness
    It came weeping back it wanted to die
     
    Till it had no weeping left
     
    It lay at the bottom of all things
     
    Utterly worn out utterly clear
     

Littleblood
     
     
    O littleblood, hiding from the mountains in the mountains
    Wounded by stars and leaking shadow
    Eating the medical earth.
     
    O littleblood, little boneless little skinless
    Ploughing with a linnet’s carcase
    Reaping the wind and threshing the stones.
     
    O littleblood, drumming in a cow’s skull
    Dancing with a gnat’s feet
    With an elephant’s nose with a crocodile’s tail.
     
    Grown so wise grown so terrible
    Sucking death’s mouldy tits.
     
    Sit on my finger, sing in my ear, O littleblood.
     

from CAVE BIRDS
     
     

The Scream
     
     
    There was the sun on the wall – my childhood’s
    Nursery picture. And there my gravestone
    Shared my dreams, and ate and drank with me happily.
     
    All day the hawk perfected its craftsmanship
    And even through the night the miracle persisted.
     
    Mountains lazed in their smoky camp.
    Worms in the ground were doing a good job.
     
    Flesh of bronze, stirred with a bronze thirst,
    Like a newborn baby at the breast,
    Slept in the sun’s mercy.
     
    And the inane weights of iron
    That come suddenly crashing into people, out of nowhere,
    Only made me feel brave and creaturely.
     
    When I saw little rabbits with their heads crushed on roads
    I knew I rode the wheel of the galaxy.
     
    Calves’ heads all dew-bristled with blood on counters
    Grinned like masks where sun and moon danced.
     
    And my mate with his face sewn up
    Where they’d opened it to take something out
    Lifted a hand –
     
    He smiled, in half-coma,
    A stone temple smile.
     
    Then I, too, opened my mouth to praise –

    But a silence wedged my gullet.
     
    Like an obsidian dagger,