• AA Pitch
  • ABOUT
  • Anti-Alcohol Ads
  • Beverly Hills Cop IV
  • Beyond the Grades
  • Bill’s Books
  • Church of MARY
  • CLEAN L.A.
  • Comedy
  • Contact/Booking
  • Election Reform — Los Angeles
  • Events
  • First Step Education
  • Guest Register
  • L.A. Budget Ideas
  • Love without Alcohol — Public Speaking
  • Music/YouTube
  • Oswald’s 6th
  • People’s Police Force — L.A.
  • Podcast — Bill’s Poetique
  • Poetry Arrived
  • Public Safety — L.A.
  • Return to Silverado
  • Submit

Bill Watkins, Traveling Poet

~ Words For You, Just Ask

Bill Watkins, Traveling Poet

Tag Archives: Ted Hughes

“Gulls Aloft” by Ted Hughes

21 Monday Jan 2019

Posted by Bill Watkins in Poem, Poems, Poesia, Poetic Blog, Poetry, Ted Hughes Poems

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Joy, Love, Peace, Poems, Poetry, Ted Hughes

seagull2

From Collected Poems for Children (Faber & Faber 2005 — https://www.faber.co.uk/9780571215027-collected-poems-for-children.html)

***

Gulls are glanced from the lift
Of cliffing air
And left
Loitering in the descending drift,
Or tilt gradient and go
Down steep invisible clefts in the grain
Of air, blading against the blow,

Back-flip, wisp
Over the foam-galled green
Building seas, and they scissor
Tossed spray, shave sheen,
Wing-waltzing their shadows
Over the green hollows,

Or rise again in the wind’s landward rush
And, hurdling the thundering bush,
With the stone wall flung in their faces,
Repeat their graces.

“A Cormorant” by Ted Hughes

19 Wednesday Feb 2014

Posted by Bill Watkins in Classic Poems, Poetry

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Ted Hughes, Ted Hughes Poetry

A Cormorant

Here before me, snake-head.
My waders weigh seven pounds.

My Barbour jacket, mainly necessary
For its pockets, is proof

Against the sky at my back. My bag
Sags with lures and hunter’s medicine enough

For a year in the Pleistocene.
My hat, of use only

If this May relapses into March,
Embarrasses me, and my net, long as myself,

Optimistic, awkward, infatuated
With every twig-snag and fence-barb

Will slowly ruin the day.  I paddle
Precariously on slimed shale,

And infiltrate twenty yards
Of gluey and magnetized spider-gleam

Into the elbowing dense jostle-traffic
Of the river’s tunnel, and pray

With futuristic, archaic under-breath
So that some fish, telepathically overpowered,

Will attach its incomprehension
To the bauble I offer to space in general.

The cormorant eyes me, beak uptilted,
Body-snake low — sea-serpentish.

He’s thinking: “Will that stump
Stay a stump just while I dive?” He dives.

He sheds everything from his tail end
Except fish-action, becomes fish,

Disappears from bird,
Dissolving himself

Into fish, so dissolving fish naturally
Into himself. Re-emerges, gorged,

Himself as he was, and escapes me.
Leaves me high and dry in my space-armour,

A deep-sea diver in two inches of water.

Subscribe

  • Entries (RSS)
  • Comments (RSS)

Archives

  • April 2023
  • November 2022
  • March 2022
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • July 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014

Categories

  • 1984
  • Acceptance
  • Addiction
  • African
  • African American
  • Aging
  • Alcohol
  • Alcoholics Anonymous
  • Alcoholism
  • Alegre
  • Allegory
  • Amends
  • America
  • American Poem
  • Amor
  • Amtrak
  • Anatomy
  • Andrew Young
  • Anecdote
  • Anti-Political
  • Apolitical
  • Arthur Davison Ficke
  • Article
  • Articles
  • Austin Clarke
  • Awareness
  • Basketball
  • Beautiful
  • beauty
  • Beer
  • Belief
  • Bible
  • Biblical
  • Big Bang
  • Bilingual
  • Birthday
  • Blog
  • Blogs
  • Blues
  • Books
  • Boys
  • Britain
  • Brothers
  • Bullies
  • California
  • California History
  • Cars
  • Catholic Church
  • Childhood
  • Children
  • Christian
  • Christian Science
  • Christmas
  • Church
  • CIA
  • Circumcision
  • Citizenship
  • Civil Rights
  • Classic Poems
  • Classified
  • College
  • College Sports
  • Colonialism
  • Comedy
  • Comical
  • Community
  • Conquest
  • Constitution
  • Corruption
  • Cosmic
  • Covid
  • Creation
  • Crime
  • Criminal Law
  • Cute
  • Cycle of Life
  • Dating
  • Decisions
  • dedication
  • Depression
  • Divorce
  • Doctors
  • Dogs
  • Drugs
  • Earth
  • Easter
  • Education
  • England
  • Enlightenment
  • Entertainment
  • Environment
  • Epic
  • Erotic
  • Escape
  • España
  • Español
  • Espiritual
  • Eternity
  • Europe
  • Explicit
  • Faith
  • Family
  • Fantasy
  • Fútbol
  • Feminism
  • Football
  • Forgiveness
  • Frost
  • Galaxy
  • Geocracy
  • God
  • Gospel
  • Government
  • Graphic
  • Gratitude
  • Great Spirit
  • Growing Up
  • Gun Control
  • Guns
  • Hard Times
  • Healing
  • Health
  • Heaven
  • Helicopters
  • High School
  • Higher Power
  • Hillary
  • Historical
  • History
  • Holiday
  • Home
  • Homeless
  • Homosexuality
  • Honest
  • Honor
  • Humor
  • Humorous
  • Immigration
  • Imperialism
  • Indigenous
  • Innocence
  • Innocence Lost
  • Inspiration
  • Inspirational
  • Intactivism
  • Interview
  • Ireland
  • Irish
  • Irish Poets
  • James Oppenheim
  • Jesus
  • Jesus said
  • JFK
  • John Gould Fletcher
  • Journalism
  • Journey
  • Joy
  • Junior High
  • Katherine Mansfield
  • Kennedy
  • Kids
  • La Fe
  • La medicina occidental
  • Ladies
  • Land Theft
  • Lao Tzu
  • LAPD
  • Law
  • Life
  • Literature
  • Living with an Alcoholic
  • Livingston
  • Los Angeles
  • Loss
  • Love
  • Marriage
  • Masks
  • Mater Dolorosa
  • México
  • Men's Health
  • Mental Exercise
  • Mental Health
  • Mexico
  • Middle Age
  • Middle School
  • Military
  • Misogyny
  • Mob
  • Mom
  • Montana
  • Morality
  • Mother
  • Murder
  • Music
  • My Dad
  • Mystical
  • Nahuatl
  • Nationalism
  • Native
  • Native America
  • Native American
  • Nature
  • NCAA
  • New Year
  • New Zealand
  • News
  • Noise Pollution
  • Nostalgia
  • Ogden Nash Poems
  • Oldies
  • Olympic
  • Olympics
  • Opinion
  • Originality
  • Overcoming
  • Pain
  • Panic
  • Paradise
  • Parenting
  • Parody
  • Pasadena
  • Pánico
  • Peace
  • Peer Pressure
  • Personal
  • Philosophy
  • Plog
  • Poem
  • Poema
  • Poemas
  • Poems
  • Poesia
  • Poetic Blog
  • Poetry
  • Police
  • Political
  • Political Satire
  • Politics
  • Polytechnic School
  • Positive Thinking
  • Positivism
  • Prayer
  • Prescribed Medication
  • Public Transportation
  • Race
  • Racism
  • Rare Poems
  • Recovery
  • Redemption
  • Relationships
  • Religion
  • Religious
  • Resentment
  • Review
  • Rights
  • Robert Frost
  • Romance
  • Russia
  • Salud
  • San Miguel de Allende
  • Satire
  • Science
  • Scoop
  • Scottish
  • Sex
  • Sexism
  • Sexual
  • Sexuality
  • Sexy
  • Shakespeare
  • Shootings
  • SK Rolle
  • Slavery
  • Sobriety
  • Socal
  • Soccer
  • Soul
  • Space
  • Space Travel
  • Spain
  • Spanish
  • Spies
  • Spirit
  • Spiritual
  • Spiritual Awakening
  • Spirituality
  • Sports
  • Sports Addiction
  • Sportsmanship
  • Spring
  • Stage Review
  • Strength
  • Success
  • Suicide
  • Surfing
  • Talgarth
  • Tao
  • Tao Te Ching
  • Ted Hughes Poems
  • Teen
  • Terror
  • Terrorism
  • Thanksgiving Lie
  • Theater
  • Theatre
  • Thomas Lodge
  • Thomas MacGreevy
  • Tongva Nation
  • Tragedy
  • Travel
  • Tribute
  • Trump
  • Truth
  • UCSB
  • Ukraine
  • United Nations
  • United states
  • Universe
  • USA
  • Valentine's Day
  • Volleyball
  • Voting
  • Wales
  • Waves
  • Weird
  • Welsh
  • Western Medicine
  • Westridge School
  • Winter
  • Winter Olympics
  • Womanizing
  • Women
  • Women's Health
  • Words
  • World Peace
  • Xenophobia
  • Youth

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in

Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
  • Follow Following
    • Bill Watkins, Traveling Poet
    • Join 454 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Bill Watkins, Traveling Poet
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...