People on the moon love a pet.
But there's only one pet you can get --
The Dracula Vine, a monstrous sight!
But the moon-people like it all right.
This pet looks like a climbing plant
Made from parts of elephant.
But each flower is a hippo's head
Endlessly gaping to be fed.
Now this pet eats everything --
Whatever you can shovel or fling.
It snaps up all your old cardboard boxes
Your empty cans and your stuffed foxes.
And wonder of wonders! The very flower
You have given something to devour
Sprouts on the spot a luscious kind of pear
Without pips, and you can eat it there.
So this is a useful pet
And loyal if well-treat.
But if you treat it badly
It will wander off sadly
Till somebody with more garbage than you
Gives its flowers something to do.
The Earth-Owl and Other Moon-People was dedicated to Frieda and Nicholas Hughes
and published in 1963, the year of Nicholas's birth. Nicholas committed suicide on March
23rd 2009.
This reminds me of a poem in Crow. I think it's called The Love Pet?
2 comments:
Did he really? Just on Monday? I never heard anything about that. I guess he was Ted and Sylvia's son then? Very sad.
(Hughes was such a rich poet. Love this poem.)
Am looking at and reading and pondering on some fantastic poetry at the moment ... yours!
One thing that Hughes said and that I like is something that describes your work pretty well, "the real subject of poetry might be what we really feel about what really happens to us, and the real language might be a very plain and direct business"
(letter to Daniel Weissbort, 1976)
btw JD just wrote a pretty great piece: http://exiledonline.com/sylvia-plaths-son/
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