Poem by Ted Hughes

For my father - still waiting for him to crash from the Heavens and reclaim our name and place. This poem speaks to me in the way that Hughes deals with the low, criminal, seedy ranks of the haters.



"God Help the Wolf After Whom the Dogs Do Not Bark"

There you met it - the mystery of hatred.
After your billions of years in anonymous matter
That was where you were found- and promptly hated.
You tried your utmost to reach and touch those people
with gifts of yourself--
Just like your first words as a toddler
When you rushed at every visitor to the house
clasping their legs and crying: I love you! I love you!
Just as you had danced for your father
in the home of anger - gifts of your life
To sweeten his slow death and mix yourself in it
Where he lay propped on the couch.
To sugar the bitterness of his raging death.

You searched for yourself to go on giving it
as if after the nightfall of his going
you danced on in the dark house
Eight years old, in your tinsel.

Searching for yourself, in the dark, as you danced,
floundering a little, crying softly,
like somebody searching for somebody drowning
in dark water,
Listening for them - in panic at loosing
Those listening seconds from your searching--
Then Dancing wildly in silence.

The Colleges lift their heads. It did seem
you disturbed something just perfected
That they were holding carefully, all of a piece,
Till the glue dried. And as if

Reporting some felony to the police
They let you know that you were no Jonne Donne.
You no longer care. Did you save their names?
But then they let you know, day by day,
Their contempt for everything you attempted,
Took pains to inject their bile, as for your health,
into your morning coffee. Even signed
Their homeopathic letters,
Envelopes full of carefully broken glass
To lodge behind your eyes so you would see

Nobody wanted your dance,
Nobody wanted your strange glitter -- your floundering
Drowning life, and your effort to save yourself,
treading water, dancing the dark turmoil,
Looking for something to give-    
                                                  Whatever you found
They bombarded with splinters,
Derision, mud - the mystery of that hatred.
        

Beethoven and Love

It does not matter what Beethoven or Giulietta Guicciardi looked like - to each other, to themselves; it was his love of her, whatever of her spirit she fed him, birthed in him, this, energetic shape: a profound, deeper passion, resulting in Piano Sonata No. 14, or, Moonlight Sonata, is what Love looks like. It is 4 dimensional.

My fleetingly brief moments being in Love have sometimes been misunderstood as melancholia, but were, in fact, nirvana. Especially when fulfilled - not only psychologically but sensually as well. In fact, for me, I cannot experience the latter without the former.
Like Beethoven’s frustrations over going deaf and his resulting isolations… my having been misunderstood by most - my experience with being misunderstood as a result of others being deaf to me - regarding just about every action and word I have given life, has made me seriously pessimistic about Humanity - not to mention the havoc wreaked because of the way I looked and the various circumstances, out of my control, that have shaped the decoration of my life. Decoration has often been as deep an investigation into me as others have bothered to endeavor, resulting in the oft off the mark (mis)understanding of my entire character, my integrity, my very foundation of being.    

"Ever since my childhood my heart and soul have been imbued with a tender feeling of good will. But just think, for the last few years, I've been inflicted with an incurable complaint. Though endowed with a passionate and lively temperament, I was since obliged to seclude myself and live in solitude. I could not bring myself to say to people: speak up. Shout! I am deaf. My misfortune pains me doubly, in as much as it leads to my being misjudged, I must live like an outcast. How humiliated I have felt. If somebody heard a Sheppard sing, I heard nothing. Such experiences almost made me despair. And I was on the point of putting an end to my life. The only thing that held me back was my art. For, indeed, it seemed to me impossible to leave this world before I had produced all of the works that I had felt the urge to compose. And thus, I have dragged on this miserable existence. Almighty God, who look down into my inner most soul, you see into my heart, and you know that it is filled with love for humanity and a desire to do good."

quoted from In Search of Beethoven, a documentary written and directed by Phil Grabsky.

So yes, obviously, I am no Beethoven, but his sentiments could well have come from my mouth; I would replace his protests of "speak up" with the words: See me! Hear me! Let fall away the false trappings of Americanized oversimplifications, illogical fears and your domestic-bred misperceptions and take a real look. Have a clear listen. I am - 

 Do I need to speak up, shout!? Are you deaf?