Ted Hughes's Birthday Letter from beyond

Ted Hughes's Birthday Letter from beyond

 
Visit me beneath the dark, colored span of wings,
    the feathered gloom, a  Hunter's Moonlit
    plain reveled into silence;
The blanketed fur of lamp lit rows,
    single edged roads rutted into sleep;
A lien of plastered saints, a crush of dried silk
    flowers, the potpourri of martyred brides;
A glaze of trumpet notes, a suicide of breath,
    the hissing gas of harbored flame;
Inside a tampered flue, a coxswain bellows,
    a flute of ash no lips have sipped;
Wintered stars beneath the chambered rook,
    a chaliced hearth, a false cup of simmered tea;
Below the rivered ice, reticulated mirrors image,
     a startle cry,  a face describes a plaintive arc;
These false trees, these barren leaves.

--Alan Catlin's work has appeared just about everywhere. He clones himself to be prolfic. Alan's work can be found at or in: Abbey, Iodine Poetry Journal, ZYX, Brevities, and Origami Condom amongst others.