Section: «Poems»
Verse (ancient Greek ὁ στίχος — row, structure), a term in versification used in several meanings:
artistic speech organized by division into rhythmically commensurate segments; poetry in the narrow sense; in particular, it implies the properties of versification of a particular tradition ("antique verse", "Akhmatova's verse", etc.);
a line of poetic text organized according to a certain rhythmic pattern ("My uncle of the most honest rules").
The Times Are Tidy
Unlucky the hero bornIn this province of the stuck recordWhere the most watchful cooks go joblessAnd the mayor's rôtisserie turnsRound of its own..
© Sylvia Plath
The Glutton
He, hunger-strung, hard to slake,So fitted is for my black luck(With heat such as no man could haveAnd yet keep kind)That all merit's in being..
© Sylvia Plath
The Detective
What was she doing when it blew inOver the seven hills, the red furrow, the blue mountain?Was she arranging cups? It is important.Was she at the..
© Sylvia Plath
'Célibataire'
Or, cette jeune fille pointilleuseLors d'une cérémonieuse promenade en avrilAvec son dernier soupirantFut soudain frappée, intolérablement,Par le..
© Sylvia Plath
Spider
Anansi, black busybody of the folktales,You scuttle out on impulseBlunt in self-interestAs a sledge hammer, as a man's bunched fist,Yet of devils the..
© Sylvia Plath
Parliament Hill Fields
On this bald hill the new year hones its edge.Faceless and pale as chinaThe round sky goes on minding its business.Your absence is..
© Sylvia Plath
Prologue To Spring
The winter landscape hangs in balance now,Transfixed by glare of blue from gorgon's eye;The skaters freese within a stone tableau.Air alters into..
© Sylvia Plath
Rhyme
I've got a stubborn goose whose gut'sHoneycombed with golden eggs,Yet won't lay one.She, addled in her goose-wit, strutsThe barnyard like those..
© Sylvia Plath
Verbal Calisthenics
My love for you is moreathletic than a verb,Agile as a starThe tents of sun absorb.Treading circus tight ropesOf each syllable,The brazen..
© Sylvia Plath
Touch-And-Go
Sing praise for statuary:For those anchored attitudesAnd staunch stone eyes that stareThrough lichen-lid and passing bird-footAt some steadfast..
© Sylvia Plath
The Burnt-Out Spa
An old beast ended in this place:A monster of wood and rusty teeth.Fire smelted his eyes to lumpsOf pale blue vitreous stuff, opaqueAs resin drops..
© Sylvia Plath
Bluebeard
I am sending back the keythat let me into bluebeard's study;because he would make love to meI am sending back the key;in his eye's darkroom I can..
© Sylvia Plath
The Sleepers
No map traces the streetWhere those two sleepers are.We have lost track of it.They lie as if under waterIn a blue, unchanging light,The French window..
© Sylvia Plath
Ode For Ted
From under the crunch of my man's bootgreen oat-sprouts jut;he names a lapwing, starts rabbits in a routlegging it most nimbleto sprigged hedge of..
© Sylvia Plath
The Snowman On The Moor
Stalemated their armies stood, with tottering banners:She flung from a roomStill ringing with bruit of insults and dishonorsAnd in fury left..
© Sylvia Plath
Battle-Scene From The Comic Operatic Fantasy The Seafarer
It beguiles—This little OdysseyIn pink and lavenderOver a surface of gently-Graded turquoise tilesThat represent a seaWith chequered waves and..
© Sylvia Plath
Finisterre
This was the land's end: the last fingers, knuckled and rheumatic,Cramped on nothing. BlackAdmonitory cliffs, and the sea explodingWith no bottom, or..
© Sylvia Plath
Thalidomide
O half moon—-Half-brain, luminosity—-Negro, masked like a white,Your darkAmputations crawl and appall—-Spidery, unsafe.What gloveWhat leatherinessHas..
© Sylvia Plath
The Net-Menders
Halfway up from the little harbor of sardine boats,Halfway down from groves where the thin, bitter almond pipsFatten in green-pocked pods, the three..
© Sylvia Plath
Gold Mouths Cry
Gold mouths cry with the green youngcertainty of the bronze boyremembering a thousand autumnsand how a hundred thousand leavescame sliding down his..
© Sylvia Plath
Alicante Lullaby
In Alicante they bowl the barrelsBumblingly over the nubs of the cobblesPast the yellow-paella eateries,Below the ramshackle back-alley..
© Sylvia Plath
Words Heard, By Accident, Over The Phone
O mud, mud, how fluid! —-Thick as foreign coffee, and with a sluggy pulse.Speak, speak! Who is it?It is the bowel-pulse, lover of digestibles.It is..
© Sylvia Plath
Heavy Woman
Irrefutable, beautifully smugAs Venus, pedestalled on a half-shellShawled in blond hair and the saltScrim of a sea breeze, the womenSettle in their..
© Sylvia Plath
The Death Of Myth-Making
Two virtues ride, by stallion, by nag,To grind our knives and scissors:Lantern-jawed Reason, squat Common Sense,One courting doctors of all..
© Sylvia Plath
Fable Of The Rhododendron Stealers
I walked the unwalked garden of rose-bedsIn the public park; at home felt the wantOf a single rose present to imagineThe garden's remainder in full..
© Sylvia Plath