Oedipus Crow
Ted Hughes
Mummies stormed his torn insides
With their bandages and embalming honey.
He contorted clear, he vomited empty -
He flew.
A gravestone fell on his foot
And took root -
He bit through the bone and he fled.
The water-spirits in the happy valley
Twined his brains with primroses, dogroses,
Pulling his mouth down to the wet humus -
With a howl he left what they held.
And he ran, cheered by the sound of his foot and its echo
And by the watch on his wrist
One-legged, gutless and brainless, the rag of himself -
So Death tripped him easy
And held him up with a laugh, only just alive.
And his watch galloped away in a cloud of corpse-dust.
Crow dangled from his one claw - corrected.
A warning.
(click the leaf to continue)