Paschal moon: the allotment of death

One of my friends yesterday gave me stick about the poem by Hughes not being by Ted Hughes. So, what the hell.

I’m not actually a huge fan of Ted, largely because he was such an utter shite of a human being. (I have the same disdain for Fitzgerald and Hemingway, although I recognize Fitzgerald was in fact a master of language. Hemingway was just a pisher through and through, and I think his writing’s crap on top of it.)

Fun fact: my contempt for him did not stop me applying for a ticket for the memorial service held for Hughes (he died as Poet Laureate of Great Britain) at Westminster Abbey. But as it turned out, I couldn’t attend, because the sales guy I was working on a project with threw a wobbly about me leaving work for half a day.

“What does it matter?” he squawked. “He’s dead!”

(This sales guy was a piece of work. I found out later he’d been shagging the Queen of the Admins, a woman who personified the phrase “having ideas above her station”. They were both married to other people.)

Anyhow, here’s a little something from Mr. Sylvia Plath.

“Hawk Roosting”

I sit in the top of the wood, my eyes closed.
Inaction, no falsifying dream
Between my hooked head and hooked feet:
Or in sleep rehearse perfect kills and eat.

The convenience of the high trees!
The air's buoyancy and the sun's ray
Are of advantage to me;
And the earth's face upward for my inspection.

My feet are locked upon the rough bark.
It took the whole of Creation
To produce my foot, my each feather:
Now I hold Creation in my foot

Or fly up, and revolve it all slowly -
I kill where I please because it is all mine.
There is no sophistry in my body:
My manners are tearing off heads -

The allotment of death.
For the one path of my flight is direct
Through the bones of the living.
No arguments assert my right:

The sun is behind me.
Nothing has changed since I began.
My eye has permitted no change.
I am going to keep things like this.