HEATHCLEATH-HUGHES IV

HEATHCLIFF-HUGHES IV

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Moody Heathcliff

The Druid Dead

The Moors

Wuthering Heights

The Night

Black Stones

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Moody Heathcliff

“No life higher

than the grass tops”

—Sylvia Plath

“Wuthering Heights”

Tragedy was Heathcliff—

Dragging his shadow around

Tragedy was boring inertia—

It was a moody moors thing

It was what he experienced—

And what he didn’t experience

It was his private agony—

An imperfect work of art

It was his cross to bear—

Constant source of melancholy

The Druid Dead

“They loll about

in colossus sleep”

—Sylvia Plath

“The Dead”

Druid stone statues—

Standing in the darkness

Blank-eyed, silent—

In the stormy dark ruins

They don’t bend in the wind—

They’re rooted in the moors

The Moors

“Down among roots and rocks

Goes the green embroidered box”

—Sylvia Path, “Danse macabre”

There was something posthumous—

Something that had already happened

Heathcliff wasn’t a tragic figure—

Involved in some personal tragedy

It wasn’t a tragic performance—

It had already happened

Heathcliff and Cathy—

The moors didn’t really care

Heathcliff was bending like grass—

Did Cathy care anymore?

Wuthering Heights

“bending everything

in one direction”

—Sylvia Plath

“Wuthering Heights”

There was nothing—

Higher than the grass tops

Bent grass tops bending—

Bending with the wind

Self-contemplation only—

Made things worse

Heathcliff ignored himself—

He ignored the sullen moors

Heathcliff bent with the wind—

The Wind, the Moon, the Moron

Whenever he tried to think—

He ended up in a cul-de-sac

The Night

“deep in liquid indigo”

—Sylvia Plath

“Aquatic Nocturne”

There was nothing to lose—

Because there was nothing to find

Whatever had been lost—

Was gone a long time ago

There was nothing left—

Nothing above the grass tops

They bent with the wind—

It had always been that way

The gothic dreary statues—

Still dotted the blah landscape

Do you think Heathcliff cared?—

Forget it, my dears

But late at night by the fire—

After a bottle of sherry

When he turned in his chair—

And looked at me

Black Stones

“rehearses moaningly

black stones, black stones”

—Sylvia Plath

Wuthering Heights

The sky leans down on me—

One of the few upright things

Amidst the bending grasses—

And downtrodden black stones

The lonely grassy moors—

Bending, bending distractedly

Only the druid statues left—

To keep me company

They’re like Heathcliff—

His Easter Island stony stare

Like Stonehenge his glare—

So Heathen and Hot

Even the druid statues—

Bend, get weak in the knees