Sow by Sylvia Plath
God knows how our neighbor managed to breed His great sow: Whatever his shrewd secret, he kept it hid In the same way He kept the sow-impounded from public stare, Prize ribbon and pig show. But one dusk our questions commended us to a tour Through his lantern-lit Maze of barns to the lintel of […]
Southern Sunrise by Sylvia Plath
Color of lemon, mango, peach, These storybook villas Still dream behind Shutters, thier balconies Fine as hand- Made lace, or a leaf-and-flower pen-sketch. Tilting with the winds, On arrowy stems, Pineapple-barked, A green crescent of palms Sends up its forked Firework of fronds. A quartz-clear dawn Inch by bright inch Gilds all our Avenue, And […]
Snakecharmer by Sylvia Plath
As the gods began one world, and man another, So the snakecharmer begins a snaky sphere With moon-eye, mouth-pipe, He pipes. Pipes green. Pipes water. Pipes water green until green waters waver With reedy lengths and necks and undulatings. And as his notes twine green, the green river Shapes its images around his sons. He […]
Sculptor by Sylvia Plath
To his house the bodiless Come to barter endlessly Vision, wisdom, for bodies Palpable as his, and weighty. Hands moving move priestlier Than priest’s hands, invoke no vain Images of light and air But sure stations in bronze, wood, stone. Obdurate, in dense-grained wood, A bald angel blocks and shapes The flimsy light; arms folded […]
Rhyme by Sylvia Plath
I’ve got a stubborn goose whose gut’s Honeycombed with golden eggs, Yet won’t lay one. She, addled in her goose-wit, struts The barnyard like those taloned hags Who ogle men And crimp their wrinkles in a grin, Jangling their great money bags. While I eat grits She fattens on the finest grain. Now, as I […]
Resolve by Sylvia Plath
Day of mist: day of tarnish with hands unserviceable, I wait for the milk van the one-eared cat laps its gray paw and the coal fire burns outside, the little hedge leaves are become quite yellow a milk-film blurs the empty bottles on the windowsill no glory descends two water drops poise on the arched […]
Recantation by Sylvia Plath
‘Tea leaves I’ve given up, And that crooked line On the queen’s palm Is no more my concern. On my black pilgrimage This moon-pocked crystal ball Will break before it help; Rather than croak out What’s to come, My darling ravens are flown. ‘Forswear those freezing tricks of sight And all else I’ve taught Against […]
Purdah by Sylvia Plath
Jade – Stone of the side, The antagonized Side of green Adam, I Smile, cross-legged, Enigmatical, Shifting my clarities. So valuable! How the sun polishes this shoulder! And should The moon, my Indefatigable cousin Rise, with her cancerous pallors, Dragging trees – Little bushy polyps, Little nets, My visibilities hide. I gleam like a mirror. […]
Prospect by Sylvia Plath
Among orange-tile rooftops and chimney pots the fen fog slips, gray as rats, while on spotted branch of the sycamore two black rooks hunch and darkly glare, watching for night, with absinthe eye cocked on the lone, late, passer-by. ————— The End And that’s the End of the Poem © Poetry Monster, 2021. Poems by topic […]
Private Ground by Sylvia Plath
First frost, and I walk among the rose-fruit, the marble toes Of the Greek beauties you brought Off Europe’s relic heap To sweeten your neck of the New York woods. Soon each white lady will be boarded up Against the crackling climate. All morning, with smoking breath, the handyman Has been draining the goldfish ponds. […]
Point Shirley by Sylvia Plath
From Water-Tower Hill to the brick prison The shingle booms, bickering under The sea’s collapse. Snowcakes break and welter. This year The gritted wave leaps The seawall and drops onto a bier Of quahog chips, Leaving a salty mash of ice to whiten In my grandmother’s sand yard. She is dead, Whose laundry snapped and […]
Poems, Potatoes by Sylvia Plath
The word, defining, muzzles; the drawn line Ousts mistier peers and thrives, murderous, In establishments which imagined lines Can only haunt. Sturdy as potatoes, Stones, without conscience, word and line endure, Given an inch. Not that they’re gross (although Afterthought often would have them alter To delicacy, to poise) but that they Shortchange me continuously: […]
Pheasant by Sylvia Plath
You said you would kill it this morning. Do not kill it. It startles me still, The jut of that odd, dark head, pacing Through the uncut grass on the elm’s hill. It is something to own a pheasant, Or just to be visited at all. I am not mystical: it isn’t As if I […]
Perseus by Sylvia Plath
The Triumph of Wit Over Suffering Head alone shows you in the prodigious act Of digesting what centuries alone digest: The mammoth, lumbering statuary of sorrow, Indissoluble enough to riddle the guts Of a whale with holes and holes, and bleed him white Into salt seas. Hercules had a simple time, Rinsing those stables: a […]
Parliament Hill Fields by Sylvia Plath
On this bald hill the new year hones its edge. Faceless and pale as china The round sky goes on minding its business. Your absence is inconspicuous; Nobody can tell what I lack. Gulls have threaded the river’s mud bed back To this crest of grass. Inland, they argue, Settling and stirring like blown paper […]
Paralytic by Sylvia Plath
It happens. Will it go on? — My mind a rock, No fingers to grip, no tongue, My god the iron lung That loves me, pumps My two Dust bags in and out, Will not Let me relapse While the day outside glides by like ticker tape. The night brings violets, Tapestries of eyes, Lights, […]
Owl by Sylvia Plath
Clocks belled twelve. Main street showed otherwise Than its suburb of woods : nimbus– Lit, but unpeopled, held its windows Of wedding pastries, Diamond rings, potted roses, fox-skins Ruddy on the wax mannequins In a glassed tableau of affluence. From deep-sunk basements What moved the pale, raptorial owl Then, to squall above the level Of […]
Ouija by Sylvia Plath
It is a chilly god, a god of shades, Rises to the glass from his black fathoms. At the window, those unborn, those undone Assemble with the frail paleness of moths, An envious phosphorescence in their wings. Vermillions, bronzes, colors of the sun In the coal fire will not wholly console them. Imagine their deep […]
Night Shift by Sylvia Plath
It was not a heart, beating. That muted boom, that clangor Far off, not blood in the ears Drumming up and fever To impose on the evening. The noise came from outside: A metal detonating Native, evidently, to These stilled suburbs nobody Startled at it, though the sound Shook the ground with its pounding. It […]
Natural History by Sylvia Plath
That lofty monarch, Monarch Mind, Blue-blooded in coarse contry reigned; Though he bedded in ermine, gorged on roast, Pure Philosophy his love engrossed: While subjects hungered, empty-pursed, With stars, with angels, he conversed Till, sick of their ruler’s godling airs, In one body thsoe earthborn commoners Rose up and put royal nerves to the rack: […]
Mystic by Sylvia Plath
The air is a mill of hooks – Questions without answer, Glittering and drunk as flies Whose kiss stings unbearably In the fetid wombs of black air under pines in summer. I remember The dead smell of sun on wood cabins, The stiffness of sails, the long salt winding sheets. Once one has seen God, […]
Owl by Sylvia Plath
Clocks belled twelve. Main street showed otherwise Than its suburb of woods : nimbus– Lit, but unpeopled, held its windows Of wedding pastries, Diamond rings, potted roses, fox-skins Ruddy on the wax mannequins In a glassed tableau of affluence. From deep-sunk basements What moved the pale, raptorial owl Then, to squall above the level Of […]
Mushrooms by Sylvia Plath
Overnight, very Whitely, discreetly, Very quietly Our toes, our noses Take hold on the loam, Acquire the air. Nobody sees us, Stops us, betrays us; The small grains make room. Soft fists insist on Heaving the needles, The leafy bedding, Even the paving. Our hammers, our rams, Earless and eyeless, Perfectly voiceless, Widen the crannies, […]
Ouija by Sylvia Plath
It is a chilly god, a god of shades, Rises to the glass from his black fathoms. At the window, those unborn, those undone Assemble with the frail paleness of moths, An envious phosphorescence in their wings. Vermillions, bronzes, colors of the sun In the coal fire will not wholly console them. Imagine their deep […]
Morning Song by Sylvia Plath
Love set you going like a fat gold watch. The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry Took its place among the elements. Our voices echo, magnifying your arrival. New statue. In a drafty museum, your nakedness Shadows our safety. We stand round blankly as walls. I’m no more your mother Than the cloud […]
Night Shift by Sylvia Plath
It was not a heart, beating. That muted boom, that clangor Far off, not blood in the ears Drumming up and fever To impose on the evening. The noise came from outside: A metal detonating Native, evidently, to These stilled suburbs nobody Startled at it, though the sound Shook the ground with its pounding. It […]
Moonrise by Sylvia Plath
Grub-white mulberries redden among leaves. I’ll go out and sit in white like they do, Doing nothing. July’s juice rounds their nubs. This park is fleshed with idiot petals. White catalpa flowers tower, topple, Cast a round white shadow in their dying. A pigeon rudders down. It’s fantail’s white Vocation enough: opening, shutting White petals, […]
Natural History by Sylvia Plath
That lofty monarch, Monarch Mind, Blue-blooded in coarse contry reigned; Though he bedded in ermine, gorged on roast, Pure Philosophy his love engrossed: While subjects hungered, empty-pursed, With stars, with angels, he conversed Till, sick of their ruler’s godling airs, In one body thsoe earthborn commoners Rose up and put royal nerves to the rack: […]
Mirror by Sylvia Plath
I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions. Whatever I 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 […]
Mystic by Sylvia Plath
The air is a mill of hooks – Questions without answer, Glittering and drunk as flies Whose kiss stings unbearably In the fetid wombs of black air under pines in summer. I remember The dead smell of sun on wood cabins, The stiffness of sails, the long salt winding sheets. Once one has seen God, […]
Midsummer Mobile by Sylvia Plath
Begin by dipping your brush into clear light. Then syncopate a sky of Dufy-blue With tilted spars of sloops revolved by white Gulls in a feathered fugue of wings. Outdo Seurat: fleck schooner flanks with sun and set A tremolo of turquoise quivering in The tessellated wave. Now nimbly let A tinsel pizzicato on fish […]
Mushrooms by Sylvia Plath
Overnight, very Whitely, discreetly, Very quietly Our toes, our noses Take hold on the loam, Acquire the air. Nobody sees us, Stops us, betrays us; The small grains make room. Soft fists insist on Heaving the needles, The leafy bedding, Even the paving. Our hammers, our rams, Earless and eyeless, Perfectly voiceless, Widen the crannies, […]
Metaphors by Sylvia Plath
I’m a riddle in nine syllables, An elephant, a ponderous house, A melon strolling on two tendrils. O red fruit, ivory, fine timbers! This loaf’s big with its yeasty rising. Money’s new-minted in this fat purse. I’m a means, a stage, a cow in calf. I’ve eaten a bag of green apples, Boarded the train […]
Morning Song by Sylvia Plath
Love set you going like a fat gold watch. The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry Took its place among the elements. Our voices echo, magnifying your arrival. New statue. In a drafty museum, your nakedness Shadows our safety. We stand round blankly as walls. I’m no more your mother Than the cloud […]
Medusa by Sylvia Plath
Off that landspit of stony mouth-plugs, Eyes rolled by white sticks, Ears cupping the sea’s incoherences, You house your unnerving head-God-ball, Lens of mercies, Your stooges Plying their wild cells in my keel’s shadow, Pushing by like hearts, Red stigmata at the very center, Riding the rip tide to the nearest point of departure, Dragging […]
Moonrise by Sylvia Plath
Grub-white mulberries redden among leaves. I’ll go out and sit in white like they do, Doing nothing. July’s juice rounds their nubs. This park is fleshed with idiot petals. White catalpa flowers tower, topple, Cast a round white shadow in their dying. A pigeon rudders down. It’s fantail’s white Vocation enough: opening, shutting White petals, […]
Medallion by Sylvia Plath
By the gate with star and moon Worked into the peeled orange wood The bronze snake lay in the sun Inert as a shoelace; dead But pliable still, his jaw Unhinged and his grin crooked, Tongue a rose-colored arrow. Over my hand I hung him. His little vermilion eye Ignited with a glassed flame As […]
Mirror by Sylvia Plath
I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions. Whatever I 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 […]
Maudlin by Sylvia Plath
Mud-mattressed under the sign of the hag In a clench of blood, the sleep-talking virgin Gibbets with her curse the moon’s man, Faggot-bearing Jack in his crackless egg : Hatched with a claret hogshead to swig He kings it, navel-knit to no groan, But at the price of a pin-stitched skin Fish-tailed girls purchase each […]
Midsummer Mobile by Sylvia Plath
Begin by dipping your brush into clear light. Then syncopate a sky of Dufy-blue With tilted spars of sloops revolved by white Gulls in a feathered fugue of wings. Outdo Seurat: fleck schooner flanks with sun and set A tremolo of turquoise quivering in The tessellated wave. Now nimbly let A tinsel pizzicato on fish […]