Bride And Groom Lie Hidden For Three Days

She gives him his eyes, she found them

Among some rubble, among some beetles

He gives her her skin

He just seemed to pull it down out of the air and lay it over her

She weeps with fearfulness and astonishment

She has found his hands for him, and fitted them freshly at the wrists

They are amazed at themselves, they go feeling all over her

He has assembled her spine, he cleaned each piece carefully

And sets them in perfect order

A superhuman puzzle but he is inspired

She leans back twisting this way and that, using it and laughing

Incredulous

Now she has brought his feet, she is connecting them

So that his whole body lights up

And he has fashioned her new hips

With all fittings complete and with newly wound coils, all shiningly oiled

He is polishing every part, he himself can hardly believe it

They keep taking each other to the sun, they find they can easily

To test each new thing at each new step

And now she smoothes over him the plates of his skull

So that the joints are invisible

And now he connects her throat, her breasts and the pit of her stomach

With a single wire

She gives him his teeth, tying the the roots to the centrepin of his body

He sets the little circlets on her fingertips

She stiches his body here and there with steely purple silk

He oils the delicate cogs of her mouth

She inlays with deep cut scrolls the nape of his neck

He sinks into place the inside of her thighs

So, gasping with joy, with cries of wonderment

Like two gods of mud

Sprawling in the dirt, but with infinite care

They bring each other to perfection.

Life Is Trying To be Life (Earth-Numb, 1979)

Death also is trying to be life.

Death is in the sperm like ancient mariner

With his horrible tale.

Death mews in the blankets – is it a kitten?

It plays with dolls but cannot get interested.

It stares at the windowlight and cannot make it out.

It wears baby clothes and is patient.

It learns to talk, watching the others’ mouths.

It laughs and shouts and listens to itself numbly.

It stares at people’s faces

And sees their skin like a strange moon, and stares at the grass

In its position just as yesturday.

And stares at its fingers and hears: “Look at that child!”

Death is a changeling

Tortured by daisy chains and Sunday bells

It is dragged about like a broken doll

By little girls playing at mothers and funerals.

Death only wants to be life. It cannot quite manage.

Weeping it is weeping to be life

As for a mother it cannot remember.

Death and Death and Death, it whispers

With eyes closed, trying to feel life

Like the shout in joy

Like the glare in lightning

That empties the lonely oak.

And that is the death

In the antlers of the Irish Elk. It is the death

In the cave-wife’s needle of bone. Yet it still is not death –

Or in the shark’s fang which is a monument

Of its lament

On a headland of life.

Playing with an Archetype (Uncollected, 1992-97)

While they gambled for their clothes

It was amusing.

Soon he lost every last stitch.

When they gambled for body privileges

It was exciting

Even when she won his last hair, to do as she liked with.

Seeing the possible gains

And thinking: Nothing more to lose -

He gambled on.

He hadn't reckoned

Earth, Sun, Moon and Stars were still to be lost -

They went in one throw.

She put them into her bag.

The Past and the Future - one throw

All attendant and invisible worlds –

One throw.

She put them into her bag.

So he hung there, echoless, in nothing,

The simple cry of his loss

Nailed where the moment he occupied

Crossed the single place he occupied.

And now, with a finalising smile

She won his cry

Louder and louder he unravelled it for her

And worse and tearing worse, and on and on

Endlessly into her bag.

ЧАСТКА ЧАЦВЁРТАЯ. Цень вершаў

Гэтая падборка дэманструе толькі адзін, хай і найбольш яскравы бок творчасці паэта. Варта ведаць, што сам ён ніколі не абмяжоўваў сябе адным напісаннем вершаў. Х’юз таксама шырока вядомы перакладчык, які перастварыў на ангельскай шмат твораў антычных аўтараў (Авідый, Сенека, Эўрыпід, Эсхіл, Гамер), сваіх улюбёных паэтаў (Лорка), а таксама сваіх сучаснікаў, асаблівую ўвагу надаючы папулярызацыі творчасці тых роднасных душаў, якія наўрад ці дачакаліся б увагі з баку англамоўнага свету без яго дапамогі, нягледзячы на ўвесь свой бясспрэчны талент. Сярод іх варта назваць венгра Янаша Піліньскага, серба Васка Попа, габрэя Егуду Аміхая.

Таксама Х’юз стаўся рэдактарам шматлікіх аўтарскіх анталогій, уключаючы шэкспіраўскую, а таксама (разам з ірландскім паэтам Шэймусам Хіні) – укладальнікам анталогій ангельскай і сусветнай паэзіі для брытанскіх школьнікаў.

Да ўсяго ён адзначыўся і як літаратурны крытык і літаратуразнаўца; найбольш вядомы яго твор у гэтай галіне – “Шэкспір і Багіня поўнага быцця”, спроба перагляду усёй творчасці зразумела каго як цэласнай з’явы, якая трымаецца на уласна шэкспіраўскім разуменні канфлікту паміж Вечнай жаноцкасцю і Логасам, Прыродай і Чалавекам; вядома ж, як любы перагляд, тым больш “нашага ўсяго”, твор гэты быў прыняты мінімум вельмі неадназначна, а збольшага проста агрэсіўна. Затое па ім цяпер можна з найменшымі высілкамі і з найбольшай дакладнасцю вызначыць погляды самога Х’юза.

Апроч усяго сказанага вышэй, трэба ўлічваць, што Х’юз таксама аўтар зборніка аповедаў, некалькіх драматычных твораў і нават кніжак для дзяцей. Увогуле, тут хаваецца, магчыма, самы нечаканы бок творчасці Тэда Х’юза, бо кніжкі гэтыя добра вядомыя і вельмі папулярныя ў Брытаніі, асабліва “Жалезны чалавек”.

А пражыў ён усяго толькі 68 год.

ЧАСТКА ПЯТАЯ[1]. Yesterday Is Now

The Other [2] (Capriccio, 1990)

She had too much so with a smile you took some.

Of everything she had you had

Absolutely nothing, so you took some.

At first, just a little.

Still she had so much she made you feel

Your vacuum, which nature abhorred,

So you took your fill, for nature's sake.

Because her great luck made you feel unlucky

You had redressed the balance, which meant

Now you had some too, for yourself.

As seemed only fair. Still her ambition

Claimed the natural right to screw you up

Like a crossed-out page, tossed into a basket.

Somebody, on behalf of the gods,

Had to correct that hubris.

A little touch of hatred steadied the nerves.

Everything she had won, the happiness of it,

You collected

As your compensation

For having lost. Which left her absolutely

Nothing. Even her life was

Trapped in the heap you took. She had nothing.

Too late you saw what had happened.

It made no difference that she was dead.

Now that you had all she had ever had

You had much too much.

Only you

Saw her smile, as she took some.

At first, just a little.

The Minotaur (Birthday Letters, 1998)

The mahogany table-top you smashed

Had been the broad plank top

Of my mother's heirloom sideboard-

Mapped with the scars of my whole life.

That came under the hammer.

That high stool you swung that day

Demented by my being

Twenty minutes late for baby-minding.

'Marvellous!' I shouted, 'Go on,

Smash it into kindling.

That's the stuff you're keeping out of your poems!'

And later, considered and calmer,

'Get that shoulder under your stanzas

And we'll be away.' Deep in the cave of your ear

The goblin snapped his fingers.

So what had I given him?

The bloody end of the skein

That unravelled your marriage,

Left your children echoing

Like tunnels in a labyrinth.

Left your mother a dead-end,

Brought you to the horned, bellowing

Grave of your risen father[3]

And your own corpse in it.

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