"plath" poems
i.
I intentionally failed to wish you
a happy birthday this year,
though I know significant dates,
hours, moments, people,
by heart.
I still search for you in boys
I mistake for bandages,
the ones with eyes almost
the same shade of your hazels,
lips resounding your laughter,
resembling a wisp of your smile,
But they aren't you.
ii.
Sometimes I pretend you're dead,
because it's less painful
to stop reaching out into voids.
iii.
My mom still blames you
for everything that preceded that year.
Though you probably had no idea what happened
when we stopped talking altogether.
Can you believe it's almost been three years?
iv.
My dad wonders who was my 'one that got away'
Though, I'm pretty sure he knows
it's you.
v.
Remember how I mentioned Sylvia Plath?
How most everything she wrote
brimmed with melancholy?
How I loved every single word?
Especially that piece
where she talked about expectations
and disappointments.
You'll never know that
up to this day I still think
people are selfish enough to
always, eventually turn into the latter.
Even you.
vi.
It's sad I never got the chance
to tell you about Ted.
How she loved him so much,
she just had to figuratively dive headfirst
into the flames-- burning herself,
what was left of her--
after she found out
he never really loved her
the same way
she loved him
in the first place.
vii.
*truth is,
some of us
never learn to accept
the love we think we deserve.*
viii.
I don't know if you still read my poems
or if you still think about me,
about us, sometimes.
Every time you fall asleep past eleven,
a part of me hopes you do.
because I always remember you--
in birthday candles, red ribbons,
off-tune voice records, golden arches,
concrete sidewalks, pedestrian lanes,
the last flickers of city lights
softly fading out of the blue.
I remember you
in everything, in everywhere,
in everyone.
It's useless, no matter how much I try to forget.
No matter how much I just want to forget.
I want to forget.
But, how could I?
When forgetting means forsaking
the very memory of you.
Jul 9, 2018
Jul 9, 2018 at 6:00 AM UTC
I find comfort in the news
Be it typhoons or drones
I feel like a 100 year old Camus
For he was a miserable little raccoon
Or should I say Morrissey?
But the bipolar king is lost at sea!
I think of Sylvia Plath and her oven
Incinerated in a jar or in a coffin?
I will mention roses in a second
But first, wear your veil
May I eat your cheeks?
I’m your psychopath with style
We bathed in herbs together
The pale ******* that shone
A reoccurring dream of two moons
I believe in reincarnation
bosoms, as the lunar eyes of an owl
Stars, rain, coffee, cigarettes and music
Few clichés, I forgot about your roses
One day I’ll strike the balance
between rhymes and passion
Jun 10, 2014
Jun 10, 2014 at 12:11 PM UTC
I cried at the breakfast table this morning
my father carefully explained,
"wives must be submissive to their husbands"
"housecleaning is the domain of the woman"
"God created woman because man asked for a partner"
This past semester I wrote two papers
One, a fire and brimstone sermon
I quoted Anais Nin
sending the creators of sexist commercials to eternal suffering
**** them!" I said. "May they burn in hell."
For the women they portrayed were doormats
Misconceptions
Monsters
The other, the role of women in the 1920s,
No longer confined to the kitchen
they dropped ballots with their new freedom
they wore short dresses and short tresses
fingers wrapped around cigs
they quoted Wilde instead of Alcott
they danced until their feet hurt
I read of Anais Nin's "new woman,"
her partnership, not submission to man,
I craved a room of my own, neigh demanded it
For sheep stayed in the kitchen,
The Woolf had a study.
I read poetry
Sexton,
Plath,
I wept for their starved, depressed selves
caged, suffocating inside the clasped hands of a man.
Loved like rib-cage jails.
Adrienne Rich made me angry,
her daughter-in-law
forever trying to fit into a box
she was always too big for, spilling
at the edges, her shaved
legs like "white mammoth tusks"
I was finally
happy with my womanhood.
****** ****** ***** ********
they are mine.
******* free to move unrestrained,
jiggling under my shirt.
Wetness between my thighs.
Menstrual blood,
they are mine.
mine.
I am not ashamed of what I am
because there is no shame.
I am woman,
I am girl,
I am lady.
I am a creature
with a voice
a mind.
a creature who endured much abuse,
continue to endure.
I am woman
and I don't have to be wife or mother
unless I want to be.
I was not created for man;
I was created for the same reason he was,
to serve the same great purpose on this tiny blue dot.
I am not rib.
I am ****** ****** ***** ********
******* free, unrestrained,
Wetness between my thighs.
Menstrual blood,
I am a per.
I am a wo.
I am a hu.
Man and son need to back down,
collaborate not dominate,
speak not command,
for when less are forced into silence,
the maddening scream
hidden inside skin and bones and muscle-meat
becomes song.
this world of car horns and tire screeches
crying and wailing from raw throats
angry protests of indignation
could use a little music.
Apr 8, 2013
Apr 8, 2013 at 6:59 PM UTC
& now I know we share Oscar Peterson in common
I want to love you all the more,
till the world ends
Let our beloved rain fall
Let our days howl of our Ginsberg
Plath, Eliot & Dylan
& others, more obscure
Let us buy that Edward Hopper
we both love
& let us sleep in your car
out on the Yorkshire Moors
You're the milk in my coffee
Let me be the billboard
you advertize our love on
lets be breathless metaphors
of each other
the quotation marks
around each others words
high on the ******* of stars
& always read
each others poems
drag each other to open mics
& drink too much
let's make Cupid jealous
of the fiery arrows
we use to stab
one another
if it doesn't work out
& make the Angels
jealous of our heaven
if it does
lets be a restless breeze
that blows
through the world
& stirs each leaf
with our words
lets just be us
fellow hermit
fellow poet
Soulmate
that's
the word
Jul 6, 2015
Jul 6, 2015 at 8:31 PM UTC
Mozart,
deaf,
died, eventually.
Picasso, pervert, died; Whitney, Winehouse, drugs, dead; Elvis, Methamphetamine, died
(on the toilet).
Van Gogh,
missing an earlobe,
died.
Plath,
head in an oven,
in front of her kids,
Woolf
Patron saint of insanity, I guess
waded into a river and-
River. River Phoenix. Drugs.
Natalie Merchant wrote that song about him in 1995.
Flash forward.
Me, twenty-one, drunk.
Proprietor of a collection of lackluster poems.
Sold their small, nonbinary soul to the Devil
in exchange for a fortune,
gone.
Apr 22, 2016
Apr 22, 2016 at 6:49 PM UTC
i've been
reading poetry
ee cummings and--
sylvia plath
pretty pools of words filled with color
--and ducks
charles bukowski is a
***** old man
lots of ***** old
words
and images
but real dirt, not pretend
real's so hard to find
these days
they talk about love like it's
broken--painful--deadly--
always wonderfully beautiful
(like the beautiful snake whose
poison's killing you)
that's not
love
because it's falling asleep with warm breath on the back of your neck and your bed a little too small
because it's laughing so hard that you almost snort macaroni and cheese out your nose
because it's doing laundry and pausing just to notice how your clothes smell like her
because it's waiting alone, imagining how big you'll smile when she comes back - it's always bigger than you think.
because it's knowing that the pain's not part of love, it's part of being human
they don't know
nearly as much as they
think--
they do
i love--
baseball in the park when it's not too hot
(I play shortstop)
chocolate ice cream cones in the hot sun
(dripping down my hand)
flying kites in autumn winds
(the falling leaves make the difference)
sledding through the snow
(and crashing into snowbanks)
i love--
coca-cola
(in the glass bottles)
root beer
(with vanilla ice cream)
7-up
(it's better than sprite)
mountain dew
(caffeine!)
i love--
you
(and the soapy smell after you shower)
you
(making me laugh more)
you
(how much you care about people)
you
(and you let me, too)
that's my proof they
don't know
(what
they're talking about
that is)
so--
i think poetry
is overrated
Jan 25, 2010
Jan 25, 2010 at 10:08 PM UTC
Led down from the tower
Head high and hands bound
Blindfold declined against the wall
Black square pinned to his heart
Eyes afire and shining proud
He sang...
He sang of Caruso, Townes Van Zandt
Pavarotti, Bocelli, Mercury,
Carreras, he sang of Antoine,
Of Sinatra, Lennon, Morrison, Redding
He sang and songbirds paused in flight
He sang like them all
He sang a song of himself
Of leaves of grass, of second comings
Of Byron, and Bharti, and Cummings
He sang of Neruda, and Plath, Tagore
Dickinson, Kamala Das and Naidu
Oh, he sang of them all
He sang of art and beauty
Of Mona Lisa and starry nights
Girls in green dresses and pearls
He sang of Van Gogh, of Picasso
Of Rembrandt, da Vinci
He sang of Michelangelo
He sang of sadness, pain
He sang of My Lai, Sand Creek
Of Guernica and Krystallnacht
He cried and sang of Wounded Knee
Of Katyn Forest, Sabra and Shatila
Oh, he wept as he sang
He sang of history and wonders
He sang of Olduvai and pyramids
Machu Picchu, Tikal, and Angkor Wat
He sang of a great wall, the Taj Mahal
Stonehenge, Easter Isle, Mesa Verde
His song took us to them all
He sang of courage
A song of Bunker Hill, Gettysburg
Of the Alamo, Normandy, Stalingrad
Of Lincoln, Guevara and Dr. King
He sang of Bolivar, Bhutto, Ghandi
He shamed us with their song
He sang his song...
As women sighed and peasants cried
He sang until the rifles fired, he died
Songbirds fell from the sky
Soldiers broke their guns on stones
And marched into the deep blue sea.
r ~ 4/12/14
Apr 12, 2014
Apr 12, 2014 at 7:05 PM UTC
for Sylvia Plath
O Sylvia, Sylvia,
with a dead box of stones and spoons,
with two children, two meteors
wandering loose in a tiny playroom,
with your mouth into the sheet,
into the roofbeam, into the dumb prayer,
(Sylvia, Sylvia
where did you go
after you wrote me
from Devonshire
about rasing potatoes
and keeping bees?)
what did you stand by,
just how did you lie down into?
Thief --
how did you crawl into,
crawl down alone
into the death I wanted so badly and for so long,
the death we said we both outgrew,
the one we wore on our skinny *******
the one we talked of so often each time
we downed three extra dry martinis in Boston,
the death that talked of analysts and cures,
the death that talked like brides with plots,
the death we drank to,
the motives and the quiet deed?
(In Boston
the dying
ride in cabs,
yes death again,
that ride home
with our boy.)
O Sylvia, I remember the sleepy drummer
who beat on our eyes with an old story,
how we wanted to let him come
like a sadist or a New York fairy
to do his job,
a necessity, a window in a wall or a crib,
and since that time he waited
under our heart, our cupboard,
and I see now that we store him up
year after year, old suicides
and I know at the news of your death
a terrible taste for it, like salt,
(And me,
me too.
And now, Sylvia,
you again
with death again,
that ride home
with our boy.)
And I say only
with my arms stretched out into that stone place,
what is your death
but an old belonging,
a mole that fell out
of one of your poems?
(O friend,
while the moon's bad,
and the king's gone,
and the queen's at her wit's end
the bar fly ought to sing!)
O tiny mother,
you too!
O funny duchess!
O blonde thing!
6.2k
~
June 2023
HP Poet: Patty Mager
Country: USA
Question 1: Welcome to the HP Spotlight, Patty. Please tell us about your background?
Patty M: "I was born an only child in a 3 generation household. I loved books, and playing imaginary games, and chasing my mom with really long nightcrawlers, my Grandpa raised in a washtub. I was a banker, and a financial banker for many years. I quit to do hospice for my Dad when he was to go into hospice. My husband had heart problems and my little Mom eventually got Cancer. So I nursed and loved them all. My Dad for a year, the others over an 8-year period. I saw the transition of each and the way each handled their ending, and I was there for them all. I consider that a special blessing."
Question 2: How long have you been writing poetry, and for how long have you been a member of Hello Poetry?
Patty M: "I always wrote, but I found a poetry site 20 years ago, and began to write seriously. I've been published in many anthologies both in the US and abroad. I was nominated for the coveted Pushcart Prize twice and I once had a three-page spread in our local newspaper. I came to HP in 2014 and I love this special place with amazingly wonderful poets who have become really great friends."
Question 3: What inspires you? (In other words, how does poetry happen for you).
Patty M: "Sometimes poems seem to write themselves, almost like automatic writing."
Question 4: What does poetry mean to you?
Patty M: "Poetry is spiritual, and a lifesaving rope that carries me through both good and the horrible times of my life."
Question 5: Who are your favorite poets?
Patty M: "My favorite Poets are: Sylvia Plath, Neruda, Billy Collins, Maya Angelou, Poe, Ginsberg, Anne Sexton, and Longfellow."
Question 6: What other interests do you have?
Patty M: "I love to cook, do crossword puzzles, read, and play card games like canasta, and spider solitaire. Being with family is my heaven."
Carlo C. Gomez: “Thank you so much for allowing me to interview you, dear Patty! I learned a great deal about you!”
Patty M: "Thank again Carlo. Thanks so much for all your help and kindness."
Thank you everyone here at HP for taking the time to read this. We hope you enjoyed getting to know Patty a little bit better. I indeed did. It is our wish that these spotlights are helping everyone to further discover and appreciate their fellow poets. – Carlo C. Gomez (aka Mr. Timetable)
We will post Spotlight #5 in July!
~
Jun 1, 2023
Jun 1, 2023 at 5:56 PM UTC
The inadequate bookshelf that sat near the door
that my sister used to call her own was
mostly made up of adolescent reads,
books better suited for preteen girls rather than
intellectually budding young ladies—
juvenile vocabularies and simple, non-complex
plot lines do little to craft and create
worldly, knowledgeable women.
I thought I must spring clean the
naiveté away and replace it with
the works of great authors like
Sylvia Plath
Simone de Beauvoir
Virginia Woolf
Margaret Atwood
Betty Friedan;
ingenious femme fatales that cut down
to the brittled bones of the misogynists
and burned their marrow along with the
ashes of bras and aprons and 350 degree oven heat.
Growing up, to me, seemed like a wonderful epiphany
chock-full of ideas and opinions and
clever, ironic remarks that chased satirical witticisms
like felines to rodents and wolves to deer—
being an adult would guarantee me a say,
a vote
prior 1920’s America
play dress up as a suffragette
women’s rights
femininity personified by dolls in plastic houses.
To be eighteen-years-old,
the goal, the legality, the bright light at the end of the tunnel;
the official womanhood it would bestow upon me
seemed like something almost tangible
with the way that it loomed over my head.
Get good marks
graduate high school
travel back in time sixty years
meet a nice boy
become a “good wife”
have dinner ready by five
bear two beautiful heirs
clean up the messes left in the kitchen
fast-forward to the twenty-first century
go to a good college
find a stable career
settle down if the fancy strikes you
live non-docile and full of passion—
the parallelism of times are severely
di
lap
i
dat
ed.
1950’s America would never be a home for me
because I am much too wild to be contained.
Oct 14, 2013
Oct 14, 2013 at 12:12 AM UTC
Pick up any respected poetry collection. Are there poems that go on and on about ex lovers? I'm not talking about a motif or a metaphor, I'm talking about something like:
"I remember your hair color
I remember your shirt size
I remember your favorite ice cream"
Did any of that seem interesting? No, it's a list of junk you miss. People in a similar position might find it relatable, but what's to stop that from being a blog or Tumblr post?
If you're going to be autobiographical, you need to walk a thin line between whining and writing poetry. Plath wrote poetry about her life, but she sure as hell did not write strictly about her life.
It has to be alive on its own accord, not because you're a human being there to be the meat puppet for a human idea.
Aug 24, 2013
Aug 24, 2013 at 9:32 PM UTC
what a life it is
to live in love
with an ideal self.
to be in love with one
who doesn't exist,
not even in fiction,
only in the realm of your mind.
what a life it is
to look in the mirror
and feel your soul shatter
but when you look away,
you can pretend you are
the version of you that you see in your head.
I'm not the only one. I know it.
Biographers say that Sylvia Plath was in love with her dream self, encompassed in a strange egotistical fantasy.
I live in that same fantasy.
How do I make fantasy me
the real me?
Dec 8, 2014
Dec 8, 2014 at 6:55 PM UTC
lovers are burning.] balsamic ****** gallops from shame
into the overwild wetness of labial volcanoes, caramelized in musk. by love's labor.
laid bare, their bodies origami inhibition...[ lovers are burning. ]
and surrender is victorious !
Eros is speechless. maidens howl into cumulus goose-down, chewing carnal haikus
with swayed backs.... hips wide and wanton. masculine wands plow oyster beds, unmade.
they joust pearls... and [ lovers are burning ]
.... a damp conflagration; tongue stoked and windswept, conspires.
monotony is slain !
puritan harps are plucked and thrummed ! lewd harmonies anoint the perfect pitch
and a chorus moans. the ghost of sylvia plath, straddles Apollo; and he earns his wreath
surging besotted. [ lovers are burning ] and laurels forgotten.
lotharios charge the seldom road; the starfish door to Saturn's parlor.
pumping unbridled, that glistening, cloven moon. her riding crop insists !
his urgency must do.
satyrs sup salaciously and summon staves to dip in brine. they grin and grind
their sutras, stripping karma gears with silk scarves. ankles to a post, well spread...
cushions crush. flowers press... stamen fed.
nymphs clutch their serpent stones
to drain what nectar slips the slit. they ***** and throat.
they peck and pinch their quivers; knock their arrows to the purpose, half spent.
[ lovers are burning ]
eyes ablaze. nostrils fetch randy fumes of consent. mouths seek.
a pouty swamp with Spanish moss.... finds a matador
and a bull, a china shop.
lovers are burning the rough sketch of a lost god
and their angels are voyeurs
with unclean thoughts
for gospels.
Aug 20, 2013
Aug 20, 2013 at 3:14 PM UTC
I keep reminding myself, that mental illness goes along with greatness. Hemingway. Sylvia Plath. Billie Holiday. Dickens. Melville. These are just a few of the great minds that suffered from a fine madness. Should they have been medicated into mediocrity? Or lived in mediocrity because they were not properly medicated or in proper treatment?
All of these individuals: exceptional human beings.
Note: Do you want to be exceptional? Or exceptionally dead.
Jul 4, 2015
Jul 4, 2015 at 12:20 PM UTC
don’t call me pretty
don’t call me sweet
i won’t be flattered –
it’s not what i need;
don’t call me beautiful
don’t call me hot
i won’t be flattered –
i know i’m not;
but then so what
it isn’t like I give a
****
beautiful won’t draw the stars
upon the night sky,
pretty won’t write you a poem
twenty lines long,
slam and bitter-sweet,
beautiful won’t inspire
another soul to love me,
pretty won’t immortalise
my swift and shining mind,
beautiful won’t taste like
coffee and cigarettes
when i kiss you on the
mouth,
pretty won’t make you
laugh with a coarse voice
at 3 a.m.
under the stars,
beautiful won’t make you
stay awake till dawn
reciting frost, then plath
and then bukowski,
pretty won’t make you
crave for my
mysteriously gentle touch,
beautiful won’t make
my absence sting and
leave a burning scar,
pretty won’t feed you
with homemade crusty
cake glazed with chocolate
and raspberries,
beautiful won’t make your
body ache when you
wake up and don’t find me
in bed,
pretty won’t make your
head hurt with all the
existential questions
i ask before i’ve even started
to drink,
beautiful won’t cuddle you
under the sound of
heavy metal screams,
pretty won’t soothe you
when you need to cry,
beautiful won’t dance with you
with no music,
pretty won’t hold your hand
like i will though it’s
december and i have no
mittens,
beautiful won’t win
wars for you,
pretty won’t stay up all
night long to marathon
lord of the rings with you
and then maybe star wars
and then read some marvel,
and then make up
asoiaf theories,
beautiful will steal a glance,
but I will steal your mind.
hot might earn you a body,
with other words
you will enter my heart.
pretty might be enough
for a one-night stand,
but i can make you
be hopelessly,
tiredly,
desperately
in love.
Apr 16, 2014
Apr 16, 2014 at 10:00 AM UTC
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Infinity's Mirror by Nat Lipstadt
Two mirrors, set in opposition observe created notional blending,
a reflecting pool of bonding's of unglued, contrary compositions.
Mirror to mirror, his imagery, fuses to Sylvia's images, hers,
faintly recollected, now living face, face to face, with his past insurrections, alters his future visions.
From cold water lake she's drawn, impaled by refracting regrets,
retrieved, drawing her words upon him, an awakening slap to drink,
beloved, tragic magic, infinitely captive. But this old man's tiddlywinks, land-locked words, blunted instruments, needy for release & salvation, are neither silvered or exacting, just stains on a dulled, tarnished brass spittoon, except for the brunt'd bunting of lines across his roughened terrain'd face, black and white, pen and ink etched illustration of howling agitation.
His words worn down, hardened, red faced, purloined speckled pellets, damp to roll on down her rutted, almost ancient, tear streak paths, disbelieved superstitions, sacrificed for one of her living morsels of words.
Man, here to her, pledges allegiance, audaciously defiling her poetic sanctity, a visage endless repeated, delivers her shiny poem-poised countenance, even though no forgiveness from time can a mirror afford for either, from her words, confession born, terrible truths beyond, beyond the finite.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mirror by Sylvia Plath
I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
What ever you see I swallow immediately
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful---
The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is a part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.
Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.
Apr 25, 2016
Apr 25, 2016 at 4:17 PM UTC
In the aftermath
Of a very hot bath
Sylvia Plath
Used to re-read
Katherine Mansfield stories
Until she felt
A little bit snory.
Whilst Ted Hughes -
After he'd imbued
The cool waters of
A shower for an hour -
Would watch Jackanory
Till he felt Hunky Dory
Then listen to Aladdin Sane
To bring him back to
The real world again.
Watch That Man!
Apr 11, 2014
Apr 11, 2014 at 2:36 PM UTC
What the hell
When I have heaven in my arms?
I see Blake, I see Plath
I see the bike next to the block
Am I good?at your puns?
Spotting these metaphors and sensing
your lust
The Devil himself between these mellowing thighs
Oh, He looked a lot like you Sean.
Undress not your self
But your gown
For me once
Disarm these plausibilities
I know where you're from
Dec 11, 2014
Dec 11, 2014 at 2:21 AM UTC
(I hate poets.
They annoy me deeply.)
I.
There are the balladeers,
Working in service of their inner Service,
(Though, despite the seeming impossibility,
Their hackneyed verse is even worse)
Creating tortuous rhyme
Which slows down labyrinthine narratives
Ending up in some deus ex machine
So implausible that it would make Euripides blush
(Most often courtesy of some unforeseen projectile
Or sudden viral contagion;
Would that their creators meet such a fate!)
II.
I come not to praise the so-called sonneteers,
But to bury them.
They are an earnest lot,
(Lord knows that they are earnest)
And they will make their fourteen lines rhyme
(Though sometimes the rhyme scheme screams for mercy)
And hang the cost.
Though their narratives are head-scratching things,
And their iambs proceed with the steadiness
Of a nonagenarian church pianist
Doing her damndest to fight the wedding march to a draw,
They are content, nay, proud of their work
Because babble rhymes with Scrabble
(Though they are not particularly proficient with the latter,
They have the former down to an art.)
III.
Let us not forget the Buk-zombies,
Those apostles of aphorism,
Most of whom speak of their departed deity
As if he were an old drinking buddy
(Never mind that most of them were two or three
Or perhaps not even a bad idea
In the back seat of some mom’s Buick
When he exited this mortal plane, stage left, even.)
One’s mind is boggled whilst considering
The expanse of the bar required to accommodate
Everyone who would like to
(Or worse, have claimed to)
Buy old Charlie a beer, not that he’d stand for a round.
They are a sullen horde, this lot,
Best dealt with by aiming for the base of the skull.
IV.
Ah, the confessionals, Lord have mercy upon their souls
(For they shall have none upon ours.)
They feel so many things so deeply
As such things have never been felt before
(They have not read their Sexton, their Snodgrass,
Their Lowell, their Pl--well, no,
They have all read their Plath.)
It is, from the moment they arise in the morning
Until such time they set aside their fears and let sleep take them,
All too much for them,
And they bravely face the days
Until such time they care bear to take action
And fling themselves from some convenient precipice.
We should, as a service to them and ourselves,
Ensure the soles of their shoes
Are sufficiently worn and slippery.
(I hate poets.
They annoy me deeply.)
Jan 12, 2017
Jan 12, 2017 at 11:22 AM UTC
Sometimes it is, poor Sylvia,
that we cannot find the answers. They're
not to be found clinking about in the stars,
blowing about in the August wind,
or blooming among the tea flowers, no matter
how scented. No charlatan soothsayer discerns.
No pull of the cards deciphers. If answers come
at all they'll be found deep within yourself, only.
Don't we all prove that countless, wretched
times? But know this, dear Sylvia, even though it's too
late for your sanity and your life, your daddy didn't
die because of you, for you, by you. Death simply
drew the line and pulled him across.
What were you to do when life puzzled you
to the limit, when all poems disappointed,
when the ink failed to flow smoothly,
the pen tore at the paper and the paper
turned to ash before a line could be written down?
What to do when your child's smile failed to ignite
motherhood, when Daddy's image floated in and out, when
emotional pain dragged you terrified under its
black cerement, that cold, wet, smothering grave cloth?
Fear, oh my God, fear, and the doubt that you had,
the whirling about of a shattered mind, bouncing
from this trap to the other - your muted, stifled inner
screams unheard, or worse, unexpressed. Yes,
you found a solution, poor Sylvia, but suicide
doesn't always equate with an answer. You found a
sad poem, a dirge to be exact, something that moves
us, but there is no rhyme to it and the ending is an
enigma, a great puzzle yet to be invoked, understood.
----
Dec 8, 2011
Dec 8, 2011 at 4:51 PM UTC
The inverse of error
A metaphorical math
Because I rhyme so sick in season
You can call men Sylvia Plath
You can call me Sylvia Plath
Spilling verses accidental
Spilling blood like pen and paper
Give me rock paper, scissors—construction
Philosophy of metaphors—the reciprocal of destruction
Creation in deviation
Multiplication in meditation and mesmerizing memorization
Mad in the head, but I’m a mat-hatter for love
'A zombie by neuroses
A zombie by drugs
But on those pharmaceutical
Cause cut **** is for thugs
(3% probability
Is in the margin of error
How many times have we ******
And would you even care?
Oh, despair. The plague of a woman-
Slick wit like slick ****
And you can call these rhymes grimy
Because I’m cleaning your eyes with it.)
Sep 21, 2014
Sep 21, 2014 at 8:43 AM UTC
There’s something about you that
makes me want to write
bad poetry
and half-assed short stories.
Something about you that
makes me want to take all my
unspoken words and turn them
into something beautiful,
something worthwhile.
You make me want to be an artist
like Van Gogh or Sylvia Plath;
you make me want to create.
Maybe it’s that blue wave
that crashes down like
an incoming tide on the beach—
your eyes
when you look at me in
a certain way, in
a certain light.
Or maybe it’s
the way that you say
my name and then say all
those horrible things that make
me want to rip something
open.
Those words that rip me open.
You make beautiful stanzas get stuck in my
head like lyrics to a bad pop song;
I can’t erase them and the
only way I can think of to cope with it
is to write them down like a schoolgirl
with a well worn diary.
I think I might as well have hypergraphia.
I am an unprofessional
medical doctor with
a pen, paper, and
Word Document
suffering from a form of
verbal ***** because I
can’t possibly think of a way to
speak my mind.
I think I would make a very good mute.
I wish I lacked a voice box
because then I wouldn’t have to
be the one that has to
say all the right, comforting things
at the all the right times
and all the right places.
Sometimes it feels as if I’m
being eaten from the inside out
by some sort of paratrophic organism
that sits atop my frontal lobe and
dictates my life and fluctuates my
anxiety and I can’t even think about
some things anymore because of this
nervous clench I get in my gut when
I let my thoughts get too jumbled.
But you—you make me want to write
the most heartfelt and sappy sentences
and you make me want to
be more than just ordinary.
You make me want to be extraordinary.
I guess that what I’m writing is
an apology in the shape of
a few stanzas and a few metaphors.
And this is an “I forgive you” for that night
that we spent outside your house
arguing over the stupidest of things,
so stupid that I can hardly
remember a single word I said to you.
Nothing gratifying is ever
painless to obtain
and I want to be a fighter like
Hercules or Alexander the Great.
I want to be extraordinary with you.
Sep 17, 2013
Sep 17, 2013 at 11:56 PM UTC
I have a special interest in telling about my colonoscopy.
The doc cheerful, secure in his specialty, colon cancer being
the second leading cause of cancer death after lung tumors.
They can snip the precancerous polyps right out of you during the test.
At first the doc gave me the statistics but having paid 25 bucks for this
interview
I decided to make him explain the science. He was most comfortable
describing the physical architecture of adenomatous v. hyperplastic
polyps
but what about cell structure I said. He was vague about genes and
hormones,
I could have been chatting with an Electrolux salesman.
I wasn’t worried although my *** was burning.
Everybody dies, everybody, even Whitman and Emerson, so I browse
models for dying—
mine are middlebrow, saddlebow—John Wayne in The Shootist, Paul
Newman in Hombre—or hagiography
Plath her head stuck in an oven, Hemingway who ate his shotgun.
Anyway I was upbeat flirting with the nurse, a muse who has seen it all
before,
acting tough, which isn’t actually an act
you do your prep and say your prayers.
I thought I’d be in and out **** as you probably already know
the prep for this procedure is worthy of Gandhi. A day of fasting,
clear fluids only, and constant voiding.
You arrive at the hospital one spiritual chicken.
I reflected it can’t hurt, lose a little weight, remember who you are
without so much **** and flesh between you and the natural world.
Snipping polyps is like taking electrons to a lower quantum energy level,
nearer the nucleus, with fasting and ****** abstinence.
The art of total presence and abstinence, dependence on the Other for
future existence.
May 15, 2024
May 15, 2024 at 7:09 AM UTC
I am the poem
I refuse to write.
My skin has formed itself
as sedimented book pages,
quietly injecting
our unspoken metaphors
into my bloodstream
of Murakami, of Plath,
of everything that hurt too much
to even whisper to my typewriter.
I am a poet,
and I will type you
into the night sky.
Sep 7, 2014
Sep 7, 2014 at 8:16 PM UTC