You're a drummer Sylvia,
the carnage of your life
lies in open stock
for anyone to buy.
You sell us death in poems
bereft of love; you borrow
our breath to line the
hollow of your soul.
The pain's not sweet Sylvia
neither were your thirty years.
If you and Elizabeth Browning
should, by chance, meet
in that starless void
of heaven or hell,
speak to her in flowers
Sylvia, red roses bleed well.
I’m not sure I can go on, but I will try to breathe.
Sylvia Plath's last words
sleep, dear children, sleep
this world she can no longer keep
what life offers, I wish you the best
o dear children rest, please rest
the day awakens with a sigh
for this morning she must die
for her mind is not her own
this you will understand when grown
you will look to the stars and sun
o dear children your life has just begun
I left the kettle hissing,
A blue serpent coiling in the kitchen.
The window’s breath was winter—
It kissed me cold, a mother I never had.
I was a bone in the mouth of the world,
Gnawed down to a pale thought.
The mirror grew teeth—
It ate my face
The room was quiet as paper,
Holding its breath for the pen.
Ink pooled in the corners
Like milk left too long.
The hours no longer spoke—
They only stared,
Thin and pale as candles
Waiting for a match.
My hands folded themselves
As if in prayer,
But the prayer was a stone,
And it would not float.
Some doors open inward,
Others open nowhere.
I found the one
That would not close again.
The night pressed in with a velvet hand,
I was so tired, you’d understand.
All day the world had sung its song,
But not for me—I did not belong.
The streets were lit, the windows warm,
Yet none could shield me from the storm.
I wore my smile like Sharon's borrowed dress,
While hollow winds moved through my chest.
I thought of spring, I thought of rain,
Of all I loved that could not remain.
There was no anger, only release,
A soft surrender, a will toward peace.
I let the darkness close me in,
It felt like love beneath my skin.
Do not weep, for I am free—sigh,
The world was never meant for me.
Mommy
by Sylvia Plath (in her voice and style)
Mommy, your face was a frostbitten moon,
A pale eclipse of warmth I never held.
Your hands were glass, and never swooned
To touch the fever in which I dwelled.
You stitched me shut with lilac thread—
Soft on the skin, but poison-fed.
A nursery built from iron and ash,
Rocking the cradle with a funeral lash.
I drank your dreams from china cups,
Each sip a silence that filled me up.
You danced in pearls I could not wear,
Your laughter stitched to the midnight air.
I dug you up in every verse,
Your voice a hymn, a snarling curse.
Mommy, did you mean to drown me too?
Even now, I wear your hurt like blue.
I bloom in bruises shaped like you.
They sang to stars, to flowers pale with dew,
To hearts that bled beneath the waning moon;
Yet every song they wove from sorrow grew,
Each note a dirge, each rhyme a fading tune.
The world too heavy, pressing on their soul's,
A crown of thorns their tender temples bore;
Love fled like whispers, leaving them to hold,
And silence reigned where song had dwelt before.
Oh, cruel muse, who blessed them with your fire,
Yet cursed their fragile hearts with too much pain,
You led them, blind, to cliffs of dark desire,
And cast them down in seas of endless rain.
In lonely nights, they felt the stars grow cold,
No voice to soothe the ache of barren skies,
The ink that spilled their griefs a tale retold
Of lives unlit, consumed by unseen love.
Yet still their words endure, though they are gone,
A burning flame no tempest can erase.
Through death, they live—each verse, a tender dawn,
Each line a kiss of beauty's fleeting grace.
Why did they fall? Perhaps to teach us this:
A poet's soul must brave the abyssal deep,
To find the truth in love’s elusive kiss,
And wake the world from its eternal sleep.
Oh, tender heart, too full to bear,
With words like fire and frail despair,
A mind too sharp, a soul too raw,
Seeking solace in the flawed.
Through brittle days and endless night,
You poured your pain in streams of light,
Each verse a glint, a gentle sigh,
Too heavy for a world so dry.
I see your spark, your blazing flame,
Bound by love and bound by shame.
Like autumn leaves to embers cast,
A fragile beauty built to last.
Oh, poet lost in shadows deep,
Who carved her life in words to keep,
The silence, still, beneath your breath,
The longing pain—the pull of death.
The night swallowed her, quiet as the sea,
Where the waves carried whispers, heavy and deep—
Sara, a ripple lost in the currents of time,
A flicker gone dark beneath the moon's hollow eye.
Oceans curled their backs to kiss the blue sky,
Choked on salt and her long drawn out sighs, drowning what they knew—
Her words, her marrowed bones, her soft, dissolving light
Faded brown foam, softly entered the night .
What does the earth remember of her?
The ground never speaks.
A wound wrapped in roots, bruised by forgotten feet,
While people, fleeting shadows, scavenge the shore
For echoes, shells, the small dust of her name.
Only the moon, that pale, silent judge,
Still sees the dance of waves, oceans, and sky—
A rhythm born of grief, endless as her loss,
Turning the world beneath a weeping star.
In her frail hands, she held the flame,
A flicker bright, yet bound to fade—
Her words, like stars, her heart aflame,
Her soul, a scarred and shadowed glade.
Beneath the weight of unseen chains,
She sang her sorrow, soft and low,
While in his eyes were cold remains
Of love long buried in the snow.
He turned from her, a shadow cast,
A silent specter, dark and near,
While each small wound became her last,
Her tender voice gave way to fear.
Yet still she wrote, with trembling pen,
A warrior lost, but fighting still,
Each verse, a scream of might, and then
A wish to bend the world to will.
But oh, his silence crushed her soul,
His hands withheld both love and light,
And in the end, she paid the toll—
Her flame was lost into the night.
Beneath the moon's melancholy glow,
Inclosed secrets began to grow.
A journey cut, a tale untold,
In the closed path, emotions unfold.
Her words, a labyrinth of despair,
Yet beauty in each poetic layer.
Through the closed path, a haunting maze,
Sylvia danced in poetic daze.
The bell jar's grip, a heavy shroud,
In the closed path, whispers loud.
Yet, in her verse, a resilient spark,
A glimpse of light within the dark.
Through metaphors and poignant lines,
Sylvia's spirit forever shines.
In the closed path, a poignant song,
Resonates, eternally strong.
Sylvia Plath
?
In this world danced her words, in a poet's breath,
Sylvia lived in realms of love and strife,
Her verses weaved from darkness to bright wreath,
A soul immersed in tumultuous life.
With pen in hand, she bared her inner storms,
A heart so fragile, yet fierce and wild,
Through verses, her emotions took all forms,
Her truth, a gift, for every heart beguiled.
But depression so deep can cloud the brightest of skies,
And pain unseen can haunt a tortured soul,
In tragic end, she bid her last goodbyes,
A spirit broken, seeking to be whole.
Her legacy, a tapestry of pain,
Sylvia Plath, once a great poet that shall forever remain.
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
Sylvia stays sedentary still seeking superiority
Sometimes summarizing situations so subtilely*,
Suddenly somnambulistic, she slips silently
Sensing some sarcastic silliness, soon senility.
*alternate, archaic spelling for “subtly.”
SECOND PLACE WINNER
Written June 28, 2022
For "Begin With a Letter" poetry contest
sponsored by Angela Tune
Why, in a gas oven, dear Sylvia,
did you stick your pretty, middle-class head?
Was the life of upper suburbia
too much for you that you'd rather be dead?
If, like you, we gassed ourselves to death at thirty,
we'd never forgive ourselves for leaving
behind our children. We'd feel unworthy,
and selfish for causing them much grieving.
But, at eight, you witnessed your father's demise;
and bore for life an emotional scar
(which you never were able to exorcise),
a grief which you relived in “The Bell Jar.”
You should not be condemned, dear Sylvia,
for we knew not your melancholia—.
For Sylvia Plath
So where do you float now;
Genius of misery
Keeper and kept
Of those mysterious bees?
You would frown at an epitaph,
I know.
But epitaphs are inevitable,
You know.
Anyone who's read your lines
Wonders how you did it;
How those lines, tiny chains,
Pullled steady, unified;
Dragged you down to face the dark
The deep crevices of the mind
- Or perhaps you dragged them?
I'm Anybody; you're another -
Two mysteries
Linked by tiny chains.
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