Dec 2018
Your wife is dead
Black heart, brute male who lay his mistress on the still warm bed. No conscience, no shame, to Sylvia still wed
And She fragile, burning with pain, fingers numb with cold
Your wife is dead, his lover said
The snowing streets, the phone box calls
The no one there, the closing walls
And She fragile takes her life
Your wife is dead his lover said
Black heart, brute male who takes his mistress to his sweet wife’s bed unmade
And lets her tend the babes where Sylvia laid
Cook them food where earlier lay her head
Your wife is dead his lover said
JG 14/1/18
Black heart, brute male who lay his mistress on the still warm bed. No conscience, no shame, to Sylvia still wed
And She fragile, burning with pain, fingers numb with cold
Your wife is dead, his lover said
The snowing streets, the phone box calls
The no one there, the closing walls
And She fragile takes her life
Your wife is dead his lover said
Black heart, brute male who takes his mistress to his sweet wife’s bed unmade
And lets her tend the babes where Sylvia laid
Cook them food where earlier lay her head
Your wife is dead his lover said
JG 14/1/18
I have cried for Sylvia Plath who took her life in depths of clinical depression in February 1963.
Unable to look after herself and left to cope with two tiny children in the middle of a very bad winter when they had all been ill with flu type illnesses. Left with no support in a cold property in London with no phone in the property. American, family and friends over there. The Doctor couldn’t source a hospital bed. She was put on medication that had a negative effect on her before it kicked in. The helpless, hopelessness of it all
Her feckless seducer of a husband gone with his new lover and breaking her heart, her family and dreams. Such a talent she had - a genius poet. She had said I love you to little Frieda only the night before. If only she had not gone back to where she was living with the children instead of staying longer at a relatively new friend’s. Why did they let her go back? They were secretly relieved to get the house back to themselves. The helpless crying in the car on the return that triggered the children to cry. The little plates with biscuits and milk left out and the sealed door to prevent harm to the children. Then she turned on the gas and put her head in the oven. ****** you, Ted Hughes, ex-poet laureate, may you turn in your grave in shame.
14.11.18 JG
Unable to look after herself and left to cope with two tiny children in the middle of a very bad winter when they had all been ill with flu type illnesses. Left with no support in a cold property in London with no phone in the property. American, family and friends over there. The Doctor couldn’t source a hospital bed. She was put on medication that had a negative effect on her before it kicked in. The helpless, hopelessness of it all
Her feckless seducer of a husband gone with his new lover and breaking her heart, her family and dreams. Such a talent she had - a genius poet. She had said I love you to little Frieda only the night before. If only she had not gone back to where she was living with the children instead of staying longer at a relatively new friend’s. Why did they let her go back? They were secretly relieved to get the house back to themselves. The helpless crying in the car on the return that triggered the children to cry. The little plates with biscuits and milk left out and the sealed door to prevent harm to the children. Then she turned on the gas and put her head in the oven. ****** you, Ted Hughes, ex-poet laureate, may you turn in your grave in shame.
14.11.18 JG
