WUTHERING HEIGHTS

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Young Heathcliff

Hareton Earnshaw

Finisterre

Wuthering Slights

Moors Crossing

Spending the Night

Mytholmroyd Romance

Stormy Weather

Haunted Heathcliff 

Young Giant

The Moors

The Boar

Heptonstall 

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Young Heathcliff

“He is a dark-skinned

gipsy in aspect”

—Emily Brontë

Wuthering Heights

Young Heathcliff my landlord—

Was much younger than I thought

I was immediately attracted—

By his sullen bleak eyes

Gazing darkly suspiciously from—

His moody brows as I rode up

A perfect misanthrope like me—

Desolate as the moors can be

The moors were tres engulfing—

A vast sea surrounding us all about

The Bay of the Dead down below—

Me as Our Lady of the Shipwrecked

The cliff’s edged bare bones—

Admonitory Druid monoliths leering

Here and there on the stony hulk—

Tall grasses begrudgingly bent below

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Hareton Earnshaw

“crumbling griffins and

shameless little boys”

—Emily Brontë

Wuthering Heights

The power of the North Wind—

Gave Wuthering Heights its name

The wind was blowing all the time—

Slanting thru some stunted firs

Gaunt thorn bushes clawing—

Clinging to the forbidden mansion

The windows were narrow—

Deeply set in the brooding walls

Jutting stones defended the corners—

The door a massive thick slab of oak

It was more like a wrecked ship—

All it needed was sharp whitecap waves

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Finisterre

“this was land’s end”

—Sylvia Path

“Finnisterre”

This was land’s end surely—

A cliff overlooking a black sea

Down below the boulder tonnage—

Was knuckled, rheumatic, gnarled

It was a gloomy dump—

Left over from an old, messy time

But the rock-pile didn’t budge—

It hid its grudges discontentedly

How did this young gipsy kid—

End up with all this ruined estate?

The doom-dreary wrecked past—

Tomb of dead resurrected souls

I followed my young landlord—

Into the great Hall of the Undead

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Wuthering Slights

“rooks croak above

the appalling ruins”

—Sylvia Plath

“Conversation Among

the Ruins”

Through the grim portico—

Of the once elegant mansion

Ruins, black shadows—

Creeping thru the castle

Bankrupt estate—

Forgotten winter landscape

A single Cyclops-eye—

Staring down from the moon

A brooding gipsy youth—

Alone in such a bleak place

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Moors Crossing

“storm-struck deck”

—Sylvia Plath

“Channel Crossing

Each titled shudder—

The shock of the wind

Cleaving the house—

Waves, stubborn hull

The stone ship—

Moving standing still

Rock-haven harbored—

Straining high above

Quirky sullen smirk—

His mock-heroic pose

Studying me to see—

How long I’d last here

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Spending the Night

“chalk cliffs blanched”

—Sylvia Plath

“Channel Crossing”

Too stormy to leave—

Cloaked in watery awe

Sitting by the fire—

Rackety flux outside

Blasts of icy wind—

Freezing onslaught storm

Sipping wine quietly—

Listening in jutted awe

Why would anybody—

Prefer such stark violence

Torn private estate—

Ransacked and forsaken

Keeping such strange—

Unsaid secrets here

Young Heathcliff smiles—

As I walk the plank

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Mytholmroyd Romance

“tottering banners”

—Sylvia Plath

“The Snowman on the Moor”

Smuggling nonchalance—

Wrestling with angels

How was I to know—

My young landlord grieved

He sized me up gravely—

A peacock-feathered fop

Not used to Yorkshire gloom—

Nor sullen, moody youths

Stuck here for the night—

Ending up in Cathy’s room

Fitfully sleeping thru storm—

Branches rattling the window

Attracted and yet repelled—

Are all Moors men this way?

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Stormy Weather

“She shied sideways”

—Sylvia Plath

“The Snowman on the Moor”

Stalemated by the storm—

“Come find Me” she taunted

Who was she in my dream?—

Stuck on the grim windowsill

Standing, guarding me—

Gaunt, winter-beheaded daisies

Heathcliff warned me—

Without much polite goodwill

Not to pay attention to her—

Driven ghost of the dark night

The wind-harrowed night—

The weltering wind agreed

She had access to the moors—

Heathcliff nursing his rage

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Haunted Heathcliff

“subdue an unruly man”

—Sylvia Plath

“The Snowman on the Moor”

A fire-blurting, volcano-hot—

Fork-tongued demon youth

Above marble snow-heap moor—

Stone-hatcheted pride’s size

Iron thighs, grisly-thewed—

Young stud spur and knot

Giant head, smirky look—

Slay-high, smoking his hookah

Dangling spike-studded belt—

Past renters fleeing scared

Several dropped dead—

Dry tongues clacking guilt

Meanwhile the blizzard—

Turned into nightlong tryst

I tried to shy away sideways—

But it was already too late

The Moors

“a white fizz!”

—Sylvia Plath

“The Snowman on the Moor”

Throughout the dark night—

I withstood the dour assaults

The now-flowing wind—

His bright as blood-drops lips

His root firmly-fixed deep—

His green sap, steeplechase

Each time another time—

His obscene Rod of Aaron mine

Cast on pharaoh’s staircase—

Born of Yorkshire snakehood

Remembering the white spring—

Of lowland hawthorn boughs

He was my Mayflower boy—

My shrewd secret landlord man

The Boar

“grisly-bristled”

—Sylvia Plath

“Sow”

Gawd how he was endowed—

With a Giant Heathcliff Hog

Impounded from public stare—

Prize of the porky pig show

My bedroom lantern-lit shock—

Coming thru my sunken sty door

I gaped and gasped—

No delicate blue china teacup

Glorified prime male flesh—

Mire-smirched, blowzy

Groping him in Snout-cruise—

His vast Brobdingnag boner

My slutty ogling eyes agog—

Prodigious young Hoghood

Stomaching no constraint—

Proceeding to swill and slops

Young Heathcliff and I—

Taking up after Cathy said bye

Heptonstall

“stone-built town”

—Sylvia Plath

“Hardcastle Crags”

Flint-like my high heels—

Striking up a racket of echoes

Down the steely street—

Moon-blue rooks in the alleys

Stone-built town there—

Tireless, tied to Celtic past

Tracing Heathcliff’s roots—

His mist-wraith Wound

Down the fissured valley—

Hung, shoulder-bent kid

Lost lusts under his boots—

The dream-people village slept

Nothing dwelt in the town—

Equal to his pubed tussocks

Granite guise and shadows—

Antique looming landscape

Sway of lymph and blood—

Couldn’t wait to get him home