Poems About Ted Hughes by Top Critiquers

Time keeps running, counting, thinking
Even though for some the gears have stopped

Remembering moments and yet unfeeling
It just sits there as dust settles around

Outside the window the scene changes
Grass and trees grow, some die and some go
Everything material ages
But time less emotions
Bears no weight
It doesn’t wait for anyone
It keeps going forward, unmoved

Characterized by numbers, faces and pieces
Man tries to measure time
Man tries to quantify his existence
It becomes the greatest...

I was a fresh tube of paint, Indian Yellow,
in wait to experience the slick skin  
of a gesso'd canvas—or paper'd  
Poetry put to pictures, a visual gift
After hand-to-hand combat
With the muse. I had never known  
A scent of turpentine permeating  
The space of an atelier,  
Unlike my friend, whose name  
Was that of a man's, Michael,  
Yet, she was feminine as they come.
Michael, who had fallen obsessively  
Within the composition of one
Who would unwittingly become
My greatest mentor. Me, starry-eyed   ...

A split in the winter curtain  
where wind slips in from ill-fitting windows  
rustling papers, lifting corners of writing-pads  
scribing archetypal messages:  
despite your technologies, I am here to stay.  
 
 

He rode atop that mounted horse
that whinnied along into the night
on and on together, astride
wanting never to stop or tire.

He held the reins and bridle tight
so no one else could know her this way
or steer her into the dark as he would
promises lighting the way.

Her eyes were deep with the Earth's secrets,
those he longed to know but never would.
His skull containing only a ridership
of prominent vision understood.

What lie ahead she would never anticipate,
plodding and dodging her circumstance.
Trust...