Ted Hughes (eight haiku)
Weave your poetry – shamanic-wisdom
And not by accident it will prosper long-after-you-are-dead.
For-all-the-raw cutting edge of-the-world-to-see.
She slipped – she didn’t fall-like-a-body-or-wreck
Could have been a striking pageant-beauty-queen-in-a-magazine.
Then an-anonymous-connection-with-men. Bewitched them.
Flame. Troubled. Gossamer-hair. Flawed-and-most-powerful.
Saint. Perhaps-she-didn’t-know she possessed daydreamer wings.
The tunnel-though-was-infinite – a contract.
Child-lost-forever-in-time she never grew-up.
She must have heard them screaming-badly-to-this-day-even-in-her-coffin.
Frieda-and-Nicky Kilimanjaro-and-Everest-forever playing hide-and-seek.
Little-Buddha-eating-cheese-on-toast. Eye-on-the-cauldron. Ill. Ill. Ill.
Rest your head, a bird’s nest, tomorrow-you-will-go-on-living-in-another-realm.
You have missed out on-nothing-of-significance.
I do not have gills-but-I-wish-that-I-did.
Like fish at-the-end-of-their journey in their-river-of-convenience.
There were slits and God.
Profit, lily, soul.
Purse, emptiness, hard-boiled egg.
So-do-Eden’s flowers wilt.
Weakened. Frozen. Sight-hurts-and-can-sometimes-be-most-earth-shattering.
My wonder, my lamb, my forget-me-not-and-my-yesterday-today-and-tomorrow
There is a great deal-of-envy-in-flesh.
———-
Going all the way with it
Head bowed at the desk.
Stop talking. You’re no longer special.
Notebook in hand. Rilke and Hemingway
in my head. Always in my head.
Their empires have become mine.
Their knowledge has become mine.
What masters of observation, lessons, intimacy.
Their breath has become my breath.
They cut me with their small details
Because they were both tough in their own way.
I wonder what they thought of the feminine writer.
The female poet suffered too.
They sowed brave seeds and planted weather.
She discovered that clay was grand.
And having a husband and children too.
These poets feel things. They see things.
They are prophets and chefs too.
Memorising recipes in the kitchen.
And their words come to them in whispers, mother-tongue.
Men of that generation thought it was strange
For a woman to write, to have that kind of knowledge.
And if they weren’t brave enough they gave it all up.
Stupid stars how I love them.
How I love to worship them.
Diamonds that are broken off into pieces.
What is poverty anyway? It is not a crime.
I don’t want love, any of it and that is the truth.
I don’t want to be worshipped or admired.
And that is also the truth. Ship the news off.
Insomnia means nothing and everything to me.
In youth perhaps I was more beautiful then
Then I am now. Now I live with regret.
And it is bitter like thoughts of suicide.
Watching someone bleeding to death is a terrible bore.
Or even in the sight of yourself in the eyes of someone you love.
Can I get anything useful from it, I ask myself?
Here bleeding is a metaphor for war and battles.
The written word, love at first magical sight.
Loneliness, morning, waking up alone, the sight of a lake
No people swimming in it or on it in sight. No beasts about.
And when you remember and when you remember not to forget.
There was no fish on Easter Sunday. Daddy was very upset, sad even.
After leaving Mr Hughes there was nothing left of me.
But love can do that to you.
————-
Poetry: Abigail George
Image: Anna Prosekova on Pixabay