HE DO THAT TED HUGHES IN DIFFERENT VOICES

Nothing but
- a waste land.

Crow is bored

perched upon a branch
like a haiku

waiting to happen
but where

is a haiku
poet when

one really needs one.

Crows agree to play
Charades.

One falls to the forest floor
clutching its chest shouting

"Aghhhhh ya...got me
I'm  a gonner!"

Then another and another
with a more cornier

one-liner than
the one before

looking more like spilled ink
than the last.

Crows having a blast
laughing their feathers off.

All big Film
Noir fans.

"Yeah, yeah...I got it
a ****** of crows!"

Across a hillside
a human stands

as if he had just sprouted
out of the land.

An Easter Island
of a man.

The sneer of cold command
upon those chiseled lips.

An Ozymandias!
"Look upon my mighty words and despair!"

Or more like
a granite gryphon

glaring at the crows' play
turning them over in his mind

until they
become words.

"Oh not that ******
Ted Huges again!"

Crow mutters
to itself.

The poet unaware
that human thought

hangs frozen on the air
on such days as these.

The giant Hughes man
a poet made of iron

by some process of
emotional osmosis

absorbs their world and words
making it up as he goes along

for he great poet though he be
never learned to speak Crow.

The great man glares
at the sun

willing it into submission
the sun falters on a hillside.

He disappears into the snow
his fragile footprints

vanishing in a trice
lost to time

as if he has
never been born.

Crow does his best
impression

mocks and mimics
the human's thought.

"Nailing Heaven and earth together -

So man cried, but with God's voice.
And God bled, but with man's blood. "

A bell breaks
the sky's silence

crows scatter to
the heavens.

"Oh that Charlie
Crow...he is a one!"

One crow smirks to another.

"He do that Ted Hughes
to a tee!"    

*

T.S. Eliot’s 1922 masterpiece “The Waste Land” was originally titled “He Do the Police in Different Voices,” a quote from Charles Dickens’ Our Mutual Friend.

I went to see Ted Hughes at the Royal Festival Hall after an extensive day and night shiftwork in mental health for about four days as staff went sick or simply didn't turn up.. Couldn't remember if I was to meet my ******* Thursday in Friday street or not or wot. I was right under his lectern and he looked immense ;and a lot like Sam the Eagle in the Muppet Show in looks and manner. I kept falling asleep between syllables and would **** myself awake and every time I did so I would get that fierce Hughesian glare!

Garbage can summer
your breath smells of dust
sticky cola fingers and ice cream faces
mixed with orange from the wrappers of long dead lollies
hot tarmac and the heady fragrance of sun dried dog ***
hot girl you need the mouthwash of rain
and perhaps an Autumn flavoured mint

TO CARTHAGE THEN YOU CAME

To Carthage
then you came

and other fabled places

seen now only
through the lens of War.

Here you are
in simple black & white

playing football
with scrunched up rags

camouflage tanks
your only spectators

the horizon
a thin cruel line of infinity.

Desert rats
the thing of history books to come

now only
a bunch of laughing lads.

The desert
everywhere about you.

Young boys
pretending to be young men
pretending to be soldiers

and not
succeeding.

This a game
played for real.

War has made you
so.

I show you
you

again & again
wearing the many faces

that you were.

Death lurks
in every face

looks out of
your eyes

with the knowledge
that it could be

you now

you
this time.

Photos
taken then.

Time
stopped still.

I see so many
bright eyed young men.

Their youth
their most notable feature.

“Dead...dead...dead! ”
you intone

in place of names
as if it hurt to name them.

But I know
from other times

that this dead man
is John.

This one Fred
your best best friend.

Even now you talk of him
as if he could walk in the door

at any time.

The door
forever closed

The last photo shows
an insect crawling

in a dead
animal’s skull.

THIS MAN WHO IS NOT MY FATHER IS MY FATHER

This man
who is not

my father

is

my
father.

The others laugh:

“It’s not your turn but
he calls only for you! ”

And so I go
& clean him up

his skeleton thin body
splashed with ***** & sh.

I laugh & joke
with him.

He chuckles
as I tell him:

“Michael


Johnny...you used to be
so full of crap
but sh...now you’re not! ”

Lucky
our Irish sense of humour

extends this far

say anything with love and
it becomes so.

It is a tired old joke
but like a child he

pounces on its nuances
relishing each pause and stupid syllable!

I bathe
him

this man
who is not my father

gently as if he were

my child.

I sing
to him
all the old songs

I learned
at my father’s hands

as he bathed me.

“...why does my poor heart keep following you...”

We sing together
softly as I bathe him

dress him
anew

in the memory
of my father.

This man
who is not

my father

becomes
my father

as my hands learn
to care for him.

I settle
a pillow

behind
his head

wipe sweat
from his forehead

stroke
his hair

until  his sleep
is full

of dreams

...dreams.


*

He was only skin and bone and very weak...one could imagine Death standing by. He was always amazed that "How does a young fella like you know that" or as I would bathe him when he soiled himself I would sing the "Old Refrain" and again he would  say "But how does a young fella like you know a song like that!?" And the answer was always the same "My Da would always sing it to me when I was small and he was bathing me!" Or my Da would suddenly recite to me when tying my shoelaces or combing my hair "Jenny kiss'd me!" Or sing to me as he worked in his plot...'Liverpool  Lou.' And so the love of these would be passed from my Da to me and so to him. We all loved these things in a line stretching all the way back to my Da's young days in the 1920's. Love never goes away it just changes into another person  and an old poem and an old song would be the means to carry that love.

THE HONEYMOONERS

slides out of...
my arms: then. . .
crashes back in again

a cuddle, that
most difficult of things
to maintain

whilst crossing the
Bay of Biscay
life is swell, well...

we imagine a ship hit
by wave after wave of
broken biscuits

after a toddler
rechristens it
The Bay of Biscuits

endless days
only sea to be seen
forgotten what land is

feeling perpendicular
and horizontal at
the one and the same time

losing our bearings
but we an ever fixed mark
the latitude and longitude of

love.

I am out of practice.
So many parts of my former self swirl around like the last catch of a half-remembered dream.
I am out of practice.

Having a baby will change you, they say.
and they’re right.
I am changed.

But tonight I am the same me of a thousand me’s ago, the whole me, the core.

It’s hope.
That’s the instigator,
and I hope my daughter can see that.

Your whole me is worth fighting for.

My 60 lb lap dog,
Wet nose pushed under my calf in the just-morning.

Ruiner of couch cushions
and muddy backyards,
Seeker of the softest blankets,
Speaker of many grumbling, awooing, harrumphing languages,
Your gigantic brown eyes home to the secrets of the universe.
My sassy girl, head tucked beneath my chin,
Here you sit, leaned casually
Against my side, your arm
Lap-barring me into place:

“Stay.”