Category Sylvia Plath

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead; I lift my lids and all is born again. I think I made you up inside my head.

But this picky girl On a ceremonial walk in April With his last suitor Was suddenly struck, intolerably, By the irregular hubbub of the birds And through the disorder of the leaves Afflicted by this tumult, she Saw her lover’s…

Black lake, black boat, two black, cut-paper people. Where do the black trees go that drink here? Their shadows must cover Canada. A little light is filtering from the water flowers. Their leaves do not wish us to hurry: They…

I have no wit, I have no words, no tears; My heart within me like a stone Is numbed too much for hopes or fears; Look right, look left, I dwell alone; A lift mine eyes, but dimmed with grief…

(1) Rocking across the lapis lazuli sea comes a flock of bottle battleships each with a telegram addressed to me. ‘Destroy your mirror and avoid mishaps,’ chirps the first; ‘live on a silent island where the water blots out all…

An ill wind is stalking While evil stars whir And all the gold apples Go bad to the core. Black birds of omen Now prowl on the bough; With a hiss of disaster Sibyl’s leaves blow. Through closets of copses…

Sing praise for statuary: For those anchored attitudes And staunch stone eyes that stare Through lichen-lid and passing bird-foot At some steadfast mark Beyond the inconstant green Gallop and flick of light In this precarious park Where vivid children twirl…

(1) From fabrication springs the spiral stair up which the wakeful princess climbs to find the source of blanching light that conjured her to leave her bed of fever and ascend a visionary ladder toward the moon whose holy blue…

Sunlight strikes a glass of grapefruit juice, flaring green through philodendron leaves in this surrealistic house of pink and beige, impeccable bamboo, patronized by convalescent wives; heat shadows waver noiseless in bright window-squares until the women seem to float like…

Each night, this adroit young lady Lies among sheets Shredded fine as snowflakes Until dream takes her body From bed to strict tryouts In tightrope acrobatics. Nightly she balances Cat-clever on perilous wire In a gigantic hall, Footing her delicate…