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").
Suicide Off Egg Rock
Behind him the hotdogs split and drizzledOn the public grills, and the ochreous salt flats,Gas tanks, factory stacks- that landscapeOf imperfections..
© Sylvia Plath
Maenad
Once I was ordinary:Sat by my father's bean treeEating the fingers of wisdom.The birds made milk.When it thundered I hid under a flat stone.The..
© Sylvia Plath
On The Difficulty Of Conjuring Up A Dryad
Ravening through the persistent bric-à-bracOf blunt pencils, rose-sprigged coffee cup,Postage stamps, stacked books' clamor and yawp,Neighborhood..
© Sylvia Plath
Memoirs Of A Spinach-Picker
They called the place Lookout Farm.Back then, the sunDidn't go down in such a hurry. How itLit things, that lamp of the Possible!Wet yetLay over the..
© Sylvia Plath
Flute Notes From A Reedy Pond
Now coldness comes sifting down, layer after layer,To our bower at the lily root.Overhead the old umbrellas of summerWither like pithless hands...
© Sylvia Plath
Recantation
'Tea leaves I've given up,And that crooked lineOn the queen's palmIs no more my concern.On my black pilgrimageThis moon-pocked crystal ballWill break..
© Sylvia Plath
Private Ground
First frost, and I walk among the rose-fruit, the marble toesOf the Greek beauties you broughtOff Europe's relic heapTo sweeten your neck of the New..
© Sylvia Plath
The Beekeeper's Daughter
A garden of mouthings. Purple, scarlet-speckled, blackThe great corollas dilate, peeling back their silks.Their musk encroaches, circle after..
© Sylvia Plath
The Trial Of A Man
The ordinary milkman brought that dawnOf destiny, delivered to the doorIn square hermetic bottles, while the sunRuled decree of doomsday on the..
© Sylvia Plath
Eavesdropper
Your brother will trim my hedges!They darken your house,Nosy grower,Mole on my shoulder,To be scratched absently,To bleed, if it comes to that.The..
© Sylvia Plath
Denouement Villanelle
The telegram says you have gone awayAnd left our bankrupt circus on its own;There is nothing more for me to say.The maestro gives the singing birds..
© Sylvia Plath
The Rabbit Catcher
It was a place of force—The wind gagging my mouth with my own blown hair,Tearing off my voice, and the seaBlinding me with its lights, the lives of..
© Sylvia Plath
Face Lift
You bring me good news from the clinic,Whipping off your silk scarf, exhibiting the tight whiteMummy-cloths, smiling: I'm all right.When I was nine..
© Sylvia Plath
Doom Of Exiles
Now we, returning from the vaulted domesOf our colossal sleep, come home to findA tall metropolis of catacombsErected down the gangways of our..
© Sylvia Plath
The Beast
He was the bullman earliermKing of the dish, my lucky animal.Breathing was easy in his airy holding.The sun sat in his armpit.Nothing went moldy. The..
© Sylvia Plath
April Aubade
Worship this world of watercolor moodin glass pagodas hung with veils of greenwhere diamonds jangle hymns within the bloodand sap ascends the steeple..
© Sylvia Plath
The Ravaged Face
Outlandish as a circus, the ravaged faceParades the marketplace, lurid and strickenBy some unutterable chagrin,Maudlin from leaky eye to swollen..
© Sylvia Plath
Ouija
It is a chilly god, a god of shades,Rises to the glass from his black fathoms.At the window, those unborn, those undoneAssemble with the frail..
© Sylvia Plath
Waking In Winter
I can taste the tin of the sky —- the real tin thing.Winter dawn is the color of metal,The trees stiffen into place like burnt nerves.All night I..
© Sylvia Plath
Moonrise
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..
© Sylvia Plath
To Eva Descending The Stair
Clocks cry: stillness is a lie, my dear;The wheels revolve, the universe keeps running.(Proud you halt upon the spiral stair.)The asteroids turn..
© Sylvia Plath
Doomsday
DoomsdayThe idiot bird leaps out and drunken leansAtop the broken universal clock:The hour is crowed in lunatic thirteens.Out painted stages fall..
© Sylvia Plath
Man In Black
Where the three magentaBreakwaters take the shoveAnd suck of the grey seaTo the left, and the waveUnfists against the dunBarb-wired headland ofThe..
© Sylvia Plath
Gulliver
Over your body the clouds goHigh, high and icilyAnd a little flat, as if theyFloated on a glass that was invisible.Unlike swans,Having no..
© Sylvia Plath
Channel Crossing
On storm-struck deck, wind sirens caterwaul;With each tilt, shock and shudder, our blunt shipCleaves forward into fury; dark as anger,Waves wallop..
© Sylvia Plath