Ted Hughes - Birthday Letters (1998)

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In the pit of red You hid from the bone-clinic whiteness But the jewel you lost was blue.

Ted Hughes

Do as you like with me. I'm your parcel. I have only our address on me. Open me, or readdress me.

Ted Hughes

I was a post-war, utility son-in-law!
Not quite the Frog-Prince. Maybe the Swineherd.

Ted Hughes

Nobody wanted your dance, Nobody wanted your strange glitter, your floundering Drowning life and your effort to save yourself, Treading water, dancing the dark turmoil, Looking for something to give.

Ted Hughes

At that time
I had not understood
How the death hurtling to and fro
Inside your head, had to alight somewhere
And again somewhere, and had to be kept moving.
And had to be rested
Temporarily somewhere.

Ted Hughes

You were never
More than a step from Paradise.
You had instant access, your analyst told you,
To the core of your Inferno –
The pit of your hairy flower.

Ted Hughes

At twenty-five I was dumbfounded afresh By my ignorance of the simplest things.

Ted Hughes

The dreamer in her Had fallen in love with me and she did not know it. That moment the dreamer in me Fell in love with her and I knew it

Ted Hughes

And as if reporting some felony to the police they let you know you were not John Donne.

Ted Hughes