New and Selected Poems by Ted Hughes Page A

stronger than the will? Death.
    Stronger than love? Death.
    Stronger than life? Death.  
     
    But who is stronger than death?
                                                 Me, evidently.
     
    Pass, Crow.
     

A Childish Prank
     
     
    Man’s and woman’s bodies lay without souls,
    Dully gaping, foolishly staring, inert
    On the flowers of Eden.
    God pondered.
     
    The problem was so great, it dragged him asleep.
     
    Crow laughed.
    He bit the Worm, God’s only son,
    Into two writhing halves.
     
    He stuffed into man the tail half
    With the wounded end hanging out.
     
    He stuffed the head half headfirst into woman
    And it crept in deeper and up
    To peer out through her eyes
     

    Calling its tail-half to join up quickly, quickly
    Because O it was painful.
     
    Man awoke being dragged across the grass.
    Woman awoke to see him coming.
    Neither knew what had happened.
     
    God went on sleeping.
     
    Crow went on laughing.
     

Crow’s First Lesson
     
     
    God tried to teach Crow how to talk.
    ‘Love,’ said God. ‘Say, Love.’
    Crow gaped, and the white shark crashed into the sea
    And went rolling downwards, discovering its own depth.
     
    ‘No, no,’ said God. ‘Say Love. Now try it. LOVE.’
    Crow gaped, and a bluefly, a tsetse, a mosquito
    Zoomed out and down
    To their sundry flesh-pots.
     
    ‘A final try,’ said God. ‘Now, LOVE.’
    Crow convulsed, gaped, retched and
    Man’s bodiless prodigious head
    Bulbed out onto the earth, with swivelling eyes,
    Jabbering protest –
     
    And Crow retched again, before God could stop him.
    And woman’s vulva dropped over man’s neck and tightened.
    The two struggled together on the grass.
    God struggled to part them, cursed, wept –
     
    Crow flew guiltily off.
     

That Moment
     
     
    When the pistol muzzle oozing blue vapour
    Was lifted away
    Like a cigarette lifted from an ashtray
     
    And the only face left in the world
    Lay broken
    Between hands that relaxed, being too late
     
    And the trees closed forever
    And the streets closed forever
     
    And the body lay on the gravel
    Of the abandoned world
    Among abandoned utilities
    Exposed to infinity forever
     
    Crow had to start searching for something to eat.
     

Crow Tyrannosaurus
     
     
    Creation quaked voices –
    It was a cortege
    Of mourning and lament
    Crow could hear and he looked around fearfully.
     
    The swift’s body fled past
    Pulsating
    With insects
    And their anguish, all it had eaten.
     
    The cat’s body writhed
    Gagging
    A tunnel
    Of incoming death-struggles, sorrow on sorrow.
     

    And the dog was a bulging filterbag
    Of all the deaths it had gulped for the flesh and the bones.
    It could not digest their screeching finales.
    Its shapeless cry was a blort of all those voices.
     
    Even man he was a walking
    Abattoir
    Of innocents –
    His brain incinerating their outcry.
     
    Crow thought ‘Alas
    Alas ought I
    To stop eating
    And try to become the light?’
     
    But his eye saw a grub. And his head, trapsprung, stabbed.
    And he listened
    And he heard
    Weeping
     
    Grubs grubs He stabbed he stabbed
    Weeping
    Weeping
     
    Weeping he walked and stabbed
     
    Thus came the eye’s
                                      roundness
                                                    the ear’s
                                                                deafness.
     

The Black Beast
     
     
    Where is the Black Beast?
    Crow, like an owl, swivelled his head.
    Where is the Black Beast?
     

    Crow hid in its bed, to ambush it.
    Where is the Black Beast?
    Crow sat in its chair, telling loud lies against the Black Beast.
    Where is it?
    Crow shouted after midnight, pounding the wall with a last.
    Where is the Black Beast?
    Crow split his enemy’s skull to the pineal gland.
    Where is the Black Beast? 
     
    Crow crucified a frog under a