Monday, March 12, 2012

Nicholas Hughes


Nicholas Hughes

Nicholas Hughes
_____________________

“Damocles has been
advising his sister”
—Frieda Hughes,
“Damocles,” Waxworks
____________________

Nicholas has been—
Advising Frieda against
Having any children:

“Look what happened—
To Iphigenia sacrificed by
Agamemnon her own father”
__________________

“I’m like the Watchman—
On top of the house lying
Restless like a dog"

"Waiting for the return—
Of Agamemnon just as
Clytemnestra waited too”
_____________________

“A huge ox has stepped—
On my tongue and I can’t
Speak of our Family Secret”

From the silence of Nicholas—
The Sylvia Plath chorus begins
Its great Parados trilogy
____________________

The past hopes and fears—
That constitute the present
This Narrative we live thru now…

This Agon secret in the closet—
This agony that Clytemnestra and
Agamemnon lived thru back then
__________________

It’s all been heavily debated—
How many “Monsters” on the head
Of a pin, how many “Arraignments”?

No wonder Agamemnon hesitated—
To cross the purple tapestry entrance
And enter the Ariel oikos of his home
_______________________

The Trojan War to take Poetry—
The Trojan Horse to enter the City
The Poet Laureateship of the Queen

The Order of Merit awarded—
The Hawk in the Rain and the Crow
The Thought Fox, the Pike and Jaguar
____________________

All of this Mytholmroyd mythology—
Championed by Miss Eliot and the
Whole Faber & Faber Pantheon

All this was the gift of Ariel—
The thing that Sylvia Plath threatened
To take away from him with the Oven

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