Ted Hughes

I don’t like Ted Hughes

Man of literal liberties
Inducer of loves’ suicide

I don’t like Ted Hughes
Emulated masculine
Reducer of loves’ suicide

I don’t like Ted Hughes
Gleaning fame in compilation
Producer of loves’ suicide

I don’t like Ted Hughes
Poet:
Horoscope
You wanted to study
Your stars – the guards
Of your prison yard, their zodiac. The planets
Muttered their Babylonian power-sprach –
Like witchdoctor’s bones. You were right to fear
How loud those bones might roar,
How clear an ear might hear
What the bones whispered
Even embedded as they were in the hot body.

Only you had no need to calculate
Degrees for your ascendant disruptor
In Aries. It meant nothing certain – no more
Than a scarred face. How much deeper
Under the skin could any magician peep?

You only had to look
Into the nearest face for a metaphor
Picked out of your wardrobe or off your plate
Or out of the sun or the moon or the yew tree
To see your father, your mother, or me
Bringing you your whole Fate.

What you do unto others
You do to yourself

You do not recognise
What you do unto others

You do to yourself
What you do not recognise

I don't like Ted Hughes:
Man
Poet with horror scope.