Best Plath Poems
I emerged / born with a silver pen in hand
…and a tempest raging within.
Words writhe, a serpent's coil
…tightening their grip
A soul adrift in a sea of
…self-made iniquity.
I buried my daddy
…in the black shoe
…by the Yew tree
Yes, I, the beekeeper’s daughter
…bearing the weight of hexagonal cells
A hive of memories
…buzzing with secrets.
The bell jar shattered
….a fractured hive.
Its glass walls no longer a prison
…but a shattered cocoon
……a metamorphous!
Pain and disdain drip like honey
…a bittersweet nectar of survival.
He, a poet
…crowned in the harsh light of fame
Bound in chains of duty and shame
His words
…a romance of lure and alarm.
Echoing the sirens' song
…enticing and harmful.
Yet, his tongue
…a viper’s forked lie.
Whispers truths and half-truths
…conjuring illusions to die.
Wandering the maze of being
A little fugue of
…fractured fairytales.
Each note a fleeting glimpse of clarity
Lost in the discordant
…cacophony of life's emptiness.
Like my "Little Fugue" a dance of shadows
A journey through the corridors of the mind
Seeking answers in the interplay of light and dark
Striving for harmony amidst the chaos
Parchment of blood and ink I leave
A riddle of life and death's plea
Maniacal madness with visions slight
A macabre dance upon the night.
Ariel, brings lightning and fire!
With heavy heart
…I sealed my children's room.
Softly kissed them farewell
……Extinguishing the final flame within.
Enveloped in oblivion's velvet veil
………Yielding to the oven’s cold caress.
…………No, more morning songs...
Inscribed a cryptic goodbye
Breathed in the silent slayer.
For, I Lady Lazarus
…Dying is an art
……Faded into the ether…
Her blacks crackle and drag, a fire of new birth
Flames licking at the borders of life
Consumed by oblivion's greedy blaze
Lost in the vast cosmic ray.
The embers die
…a fleeting spark gone
No masterpiece
…….just dust reclaimed
A silent echo in the void unstained.
A mystery lost
………never quite explained.
Yet, God's Lioness
...Fierce and Untamed
Roaring her defiance
…Covered in darkness…
----
Underneath the star-strewn skies
A fleeting passing note.
Lost in the vast expanse
Living on the edge
For, I am but a speck of dust.
In ode to all who succumb
through wayward passages
lined of scribble notes
dripping ink’s savagery,
staining cursive patterns
in Sylvia-like depressions
Jarred bells ring
down lost tunnels
around each dark corner…clang
from steeples we chase
and beds we lie
draped in sadness
and shapes of
poetic happenstance
Tear drop vinaigrette
spiced of leftover lifetimes
drizzled on leafy desperation
bids a tired farewell
before time collects
the deserved rewards
The raven is too hyperactive at my window pane.
Hear how noisy its wings are; was napping, now knocking knees.
Was about to turn over, with restrictions of the homebound,
As the shadows fly off tight walls, this cot, my face.
I am bothered; I am covered in ebonic feathers.
My eyes tick-tock, they’re grave, and my blue hands they are warmed by ice;
And the cuckoo visits ev’ry half hour as my flesh morphs pale green.
i never knew who she was
until i was called "plath-like";
same obscured thoughts
abundant in poetic frame of mind
i scribble thoughts
like shadows on walls
beneath a pale moon
that play in the corner
where darkness looms
then fade out
before the bloody rise
of cockcrow
i never knew who she was;
back then
they fed us poe
shakespeare
and wadsworth
so minds of children
could grow
i never knew who she was
her ink ran dry
long before i could finger a pen
yet her thoughts
linger in my mind
"plath-like"
There's a cold dark place
Sylvia Plath has been inside
A kind of sacrificial lamb
An experiment of sorts
Misogyny for the masses
A Hitler for wives
Dust that, rub this,
Lunch is cold, you shall pay!
Only one way out
Put the lunch in the gas oven
Warm it up real nice and slow
Then turn it up
"Is that better, Heil Hughes"
Misogyny
Footnote
There is speculation whether Ted Hughes drove his former wife Sylvia Plath to suicide
Dust rises thick with grim, sweat drips from rims
of drug-store eyes he wears to spy.
A parting of the slats, which dangle by twin hooks
This Moses at the sea
will look, and count, to see who's home, who's come, who's gone
Behind a brick façade, what makes one hide
in a beehive's nest of shopworn lives?
Where sorrow turns to peevish glue
in a Hitchcock room that feeds his fear?
Where wind says, "Come outside"!
Should he pull the string, raise the blind
maimed of grime and years? Then what? Then what?
Slacken the cord to scan the scene?
What if the wind asks, "Come outside" ?
They come and go, come and go
Who knows when or why they go
Where do they go, where do they go, where do they go go go
His breath escapes, from thin lips, pursed,
against the glass. as if rehearsed
His youth entombed by flocks of loss…
Thoughts tossed, will rise, then bounce and drift,
within the rift of fear and dread
Webbed with soot, popcorn, and tunes of
long-lost schemes, long lost dreams
He watches those who never cross
an empty hallway, disturb his peace with knocks,
or bells, or locks or smiles
Who never cross discord's threshold,
hold a dish, lend a hand or take the chance to know such cold
Wind whips the trees and claims his mind
and yells again to come outside
Sun's shaded by those leafless chances, slats that sever
all the dreams of ever after…
……and the wind screams stay inside
_____________________________________________________________________
For the contest: "Poe In Plath Style"
Sponsored By July Morning
2/11/18
What she might have been was hidden
Beneath self-destruction and depression
Despair so black it silenced light, war-ridden
Life without purpose, true love forbidden
Leaving darkest doubt lost in the impression
What she might have been was hidden
Her emotions, joy and hope, bedridden
A hole in her soul reflects every transgression
Despair so black it silenced light, war-ridden
Wonders in tears, promise of love, backslidden
Suicide whispering like a taunting obsession
What she might have been was hidden
Love cried out to her but she simply didn’t
Hear its voice – its feeling a wonderous confession
Despair so black it silenced the light, war-ridden
The music of prayers erasing suspicions, unbidden
Warring inside her, awful confusion and aggression
What she might have been was hidden
Despair so black it silenced the light, war-ridden
Psychotic pain rips her flesh from bone
Leaving her ragged skeletal shadow brutally
Assaulted by maniacal horror imperceptible to the mentally normal
Temptation conquers her and she welcomes serene death with poisonous applause, gas her invisible
Hangman’s noose-forever silencing her
You are a lost, lonely little girl
Have another dose of medicine to ease the pain
Your Daddy has gone off to war; you will never again see his face
Love and Acceptance - the bitter pill that you cannot swallow.
Oh, how I wish I could comfort and protect you from the woman in the mirror
It’s as if I made YOU up in MY head
The men in white torture you with a few more volts to ease the madness
Monday’s seem to drag on, but for you Monday was cut short
The sun provided no rays of light, no hope for a brighter tomorrow.
You are now set free from the war that rages inside of you, that has plagued
your being
Set free from the Holocaust which robbed you of yourself
Tortured painter of words, how you festoon your words with color
As dark as the words appear on the page, your words are red
Daffodils sprout out of the Earth where you lay your head
Tomorrows do not exist for you, nor do todays or yesterdays
I hear the laughter of angels, perhaps you are there among them
No more tears, no more sorrows, or pain, you are free
Dancing on a cloud with God, or perhaps playing your golden harp
It really does not matter because you now rest in peace - away from your troubles
You shut your eyes and the world, dropped dead, but I shut mine and I see a
world of possibilities.
How different we are and yet so much the same
You were a lost, lonely little girl who is now home with her Daddy
I am a man, whose father is alive and well, and yet we seem so distant
Do you see the glass over there? Is it half-full or is it half-empty?
It’s no matter for you are dead and gone
I am alive; I will always be alive in one way.
I sing the happy gospel melody of a choir, while you sing the blues
Sylvia Plath,
walked on dangerous path,
she and herself always in a rift,
and she gave death her precious gift.
Sylvia Plath was one poet I was particularly obsessed with as a young girl because I found out that I wrote some of my early poems(the ones I wrote whenever I was depressed) just like hers. I still admired her talent greatly but really scared to make her my mentor, now that I have conquered my depression long time ago. (Hmmmm personal confession)
SYLVIA PLATH IS A DANGEROUS WOMAN
here she is: the true resurrection,
the big reveal of the woman,
the poet who charges
for a word, a touch,
a speck of blood.
after all, she has come back
three times to his
one.
unlike the christ man
she charges yet again
for the seeing of her scars,
the hearing of her
heart. she says it really goes
and who are we to doubt
the poet who rises up
in broad daylight like a miracle.
every decade she does it again,
the big strip tease, claiming
always to be the same identical woman.
i listen to her shriek and weep,
as she wiggles into death
as though it truly is an art.
she truly is a dangerous woman,
unwrapped hand and foot,
flesh and bone, she turns and burns
and eats men like air.
(Poem based on Lady Lazarus by Sylvia Plath)
Copyrighted
Jim Brewer
April 11, 2011
The tearaway, youthful runaway
Running for a lifetime, blocked out
Brick wall, but, those same
Old demons stuck to your back
Demon wings like barnacles
To the hull of your iron heart
Beating under apron strings
Ever since "Daddy" left, Electra
You have been a tulip, caught
In a Slavic winter. Redraw
The map. Nazi Prussian blues
To London, America. The United
States of absolute; the growing
Ground for your misanthropy. Awfully
Unfortunate; yet ever giving
We feast upon your tortured
Soul. Black gold ink
The slurry you bleed upon us
Rich in image with a sick
Sense of humour; like laughing
In a morgue or spitting jokes
Upon a fresh grave. Ach du!
The same old jar, pickled flesh. Gott!
A foetus. What a tortured mind can
Breathe to life in the fold of a
Notepad; the centrefold...Paula Brown
The world in two, waiting for a saviour
Superman or Nazi gas. The house drowned
In complete, ravenous silence as you fell asleep.
Sylvia Plath you don't know how much love my pants hath...
For you-- you stupid Jew--
I'll show you the rack and the screw--
With my rod you will know whose God--
For with every shove
You will feel my Love
You can't fathom your problem
(Sylvia Plath killed herself through asphyxiation by sticking her head in a gas stove and turning it on. In so doing, she left two kids-- in some circles that is cowardly.)
My mother, Sylvia Plath,
These days, I might laugh,
Electric oven, you know!
I was too young to know,
One way to go--
It was too young to know,
I used to live in dread,
I learnt what blackmail meant,
She got cremated, you know,
I was too young to know,
These days, I might laugh,
My mother, Sylvia Plath.
Students study her sadness
Librarians hide away her books
From clumsy, shy teenagers
While she floats like a golden lotus
Amidst fierce flames
She doesn't even remember that winter morning
When she went into her kitchen
And turned on the gas –
The world was cold on that day
Grey people, hidden sun, black moon,
Clouds were falling from the sky -
Tired of writing books,
While her life was a book,
Abandoned book with torn pages
She went into her kitchen
And turned on the gas –
She broke her bell jar,
Shut her eyes
Her face was calm,
Like a golden lotus
Amidst fierce flames