Lovesong -- by Ted Hughes

Lovesong -- by Ted Hughes
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He loved her and she loved him.
His kisses sucked out her whole past and future or tried to
He had no other appetite
She bit him she gnawed him she sucked him
She wanted him complete inside her
Safe and sure forever and ever
Their little cries fluttered into the curtains

Her eyes wanted nothing to get away
Her looks nailed down his hands his wrists his elbows
He gripped her hard so that life
Should not drag her from that moment
He wanted all future to cease
He wanted to topple with his arms round her
Off that moment's brink and into nothing
Or everlasting or whatever there was

Her embrace was an immense press
To print him into her bones
His smiles were the garrets of a fairy palace
Where the real world would never come
Her smiles were spider bites
So he would lie still till she felt hungry
His words were occupying armies
Her laughs were an assassin's attempts
His looks were bullets daggers of revenge
His glances were ghosts in the corner with horrible secrets
His whispers were whips and jackboots
Her kisses were lawyers steadily writing
His caresses were the last hooks of a castaway
Her love-tricks were the grinding of locks
And their deep cries crawled over the floors
Like an animal dragging a great trap
His promises were the surgeon's gag
Her promises took the top off his skull
She would get a brooch made of it
His vows pulled out all her sinews
He showed her how to make a love-knot
Her vows put his eyes in formalin
At the back of her secret drawer
Their screams stuck in the wall

Their heads fell apart into sleep like the two halves
Of a lopped melon, but love is hard to stop

In their entwined sleep they exchanged arms and legs
In their dreams their brains took each other hostage

In the morning they wore each other's face

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• Lovesong
• love
• song
• Ted
• Hughes
• poetry
• poems
• reading
• popular
• Sylvia
• Plath

[TashejaMusic]

Terrific reading! 

[tndowns1122]

@TashejaMusic Thanks!

[DavidRandallCurtis]

Long live Sylvia Plath.

[tndowns1122]

Long live Sylvia Plath indeed! I think next up, I might read Daddy.

[acuriousaffair]

URGH! What a revolting pig he was. Even his poetry is vile.

I wish I hadn't been curious and listened to this.

[BrianDornTFP]

Great read and suitable art ... well done.

[alejandro15187]

seems more like the futility of what we think of as permanance. which is, like you say, a breakdown.

[sunclov]

was this Sylvia

[quagapp]

Great poem. But perhaps not his best. It is about love in general - the possessive nature of it the often near, or real, destructiveness of it; I think - not (only in any case) about Path or Assia anyone in particular.

[AllyPallyWife]

This poem chronicles the breakdown of love

[kickeddog1]

creepy

[SpoookiePoookie]

Good job =]

I like the timbre of your voice.