Troubled Jaguar

Troubled Jaguar
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Troubled Jaguar
The London Zoo
Jaguar Sermon I
Jaguar Sermon II
De-evolution
Seancing the Self
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Troubled Jaguar

“The sculpture, which Hughes
gave to his brother, is particularly
striking because he branded the
jaguar's forehead with the letter 'A',
possibly for Assia or "adulterer", as
recalled in Nathaniel Hawthorne's
The Scarlet Letter, in which a woman
is sentenced to wearing the letter
A around her neck.”
—Dalya Alberge, “Ted Hughes's
Jaguar Sculpture Hints at Poet's
Demons,” The Guardian, Dec 31, 2011
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/dec/31/ted-hughes-jaguar-sculpture-sale
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But why just Assia?—
Why not Hughes himself
Addicted to adultery like
A jaguar to blood?

Moody Moors male—
Admired by so many for
His unabashed natural
Manhood demeanor

Can we enclose him—
In a cage like a panther
In the London Zoo with
Him behind bars?
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So many lit crit experts—
Both men and women
And even Queen Elizabeth
Loved his uncouth ways

His wild Yorkshire—
Hunting Fishing Trapping
Worship of the Goddess
Gaia of the Moors?

Was he not what—
Men are supposed to be
Or used to be back when
Men were wild Jaguars?
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And yet he was caught—
But then he struggled
To be free, this troubled
Man like you and me?
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The London Zoo
—for Frieda and Nicholas

I took them thru—
The Park to the Zoo
To get them outta that
W. B. Yeats madhouse

Panthers pace back—
And forth in the cages
Monkey-brained humans
Strutting like cheap tarts

I wanted them to see—
How invisible cages
Enclose all of us
Living in a dream

But the slinky jaguar—
Caught my eye and made
Me realize that not even
Poet-Panthers are free
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Poet-Panther
—for Ted Hughes

I dream in the—
Invisible Zoo slinking
Paw after paw stalking
The human prey

The naked apes yawn—
Eating their peanuts
Monkey-brain humans
Naked ape drowsers

Cheap tarts mincing—
Fatigued by indolence
Shrieking like parrots
Their kids in strollers

The Invisible Zoo—
With bars just as real
As the steel ones
Between them & me
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Jaguar Sermon I

“No, the serpent didn’t
Seduce Eve to the apple”
—Ted Hughes, “Theology,”
Wodwo

Adam ate the apple—
Then he ate out Eve
And God was jealous
So very displeased

So he cast the Serpent—
Down between Adam’s legs
And made the Snake grovel
And wiggle down there

Casting the Serpent—
All the way down as the
Snake with Two Legs
Walking the naked earth

So the next time—
He raises his ugly head
Smoldering arrogant Snake
Know his Downfall is yours
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Jaguar Sermon II

“That rose slowly
towards me, watching”
—Ted Hughes,
“Pike,” Lupercal

The Snake hardly moves—
Fossil-slow Boa-Constrictor
Captured in the London Zoo
Down between his legs

The era of Giant Lizards—
Isn’t over sitting in its
Prehistoric stillness and
Slow-motion wisdom

Mucousy slug tracks—
Beneath Iago idiot eyeballs
Close to the Killer Cobra
Eclipse of monkey-brains

African Garden of Eden—
Retro-engineered just right
With a flawed genetic code
Panther Killer Chromosome
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De-Evolution

“Had those antlers
fallen from a star?”
—Ted Hughes,
“The Last Migration,”
Uncollected Poems

So God died—
And a new god with a
More narrowed insight
Using the Word reversed
Gazed backward in Time

Standing there was Man—
Pandora Box of Pain
Purposeless pale gristle
Cloying unbelievably
To the empty horizon
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A Devil with antlers—
Hoisted on a dazed curly head
A Michelangelo body but
A dreary draughty brain
Veiny Baroque Bernini legs

Cluttered there among—
The other unbelievable
Leftovers of hooves and
Antlers and roots that didn’t
Belong to a Garden of Eden
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Burning the Brothel—
Spiraling Time backwards
Counter-clockwise weightlessly
Shuddering haunches and horns
Into the vortex of words

Quarks quaking—
Black holes suckin in
The tumbling final Thunder
Back thru the eye-pupil
Connecting what had spoiled
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Seancing the Self

“Godforsaken darkness—
This monstrous-headed
difficult child”
—Ted Hughes,
“The Perfect Forms,”
Lupercal

Undoing the Ouija Pan voice—
Remaking the Tarot deck closely
To fit the faces of Eve and the
Periplum perplexities of the Pike

How to make the bars disappear—
The invisible cage in the London Zoo
Undoing the bed we slept in and
Undreaming the Fortune Teller jive
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Retooling Mytholmroyd Mythology—
The phases of the Hubris Moon
Down in the Maze of Ted’s Navel
Unlocking Ariadne’s Umbilical Cord

All that was easy stuff—
Compared with the last Trick of All
Cleaning the Stables of the Gods
All that man-made manure stuff