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 Surgeon At 2 A.M.

The white light is artificial, and hygienic as heaven.The microbes cannot survive it.They are departing in their transparent garments, turned..

© Sylvia Plath

Soliloquy Of The Solipsist

Soliloquy Of The SolipsistI?I walk alone;The midnight streetSpins itself from under my feet;When my eyes shutThese dreaming houses all snuff..

© Sylvia Plath

Mary's Song

The Sunday lamb cracks in its fat.The fatSacrifices its opacity. . . .A window, holy gold.The fire makes it precious,The same fireMelting the tallow..

© Sylvia Plath

The Courage Of Shutting-Up

The courage of the shut mouth, in spite of artillery!The line pink and quiet, a worm, basking.There are black disks behind it, the disks of..

© Sylvia Plath

Amnesiac

No use, no use, now, begging Recognize!There is nothing to do with such a beautiful blank but smooth it.Name, house, car keys,The little toy..

© Sylvia Plath

The Ghost's Leavetaking

Enter the chilly no-man's land of aboutFive o'clock in the morning, the no-color voidWhere the waking head rubbishes out the draggled lotOf sulfurous..

© Sylvia Plath

Burning The Letters

I made a fire; being tiredOf the white fists of oldLetters and their death rattleWhen I came too close to the wastebasketWhat did they know that I..

© Sylvia Plath

I Want, I Want

Open-mouthed, the baby godImmense, bald, though baby-headed,Cried out for the mother's dug.The dry volcanoes cracked and split,Sand abraded the..

© Sylvia Plath

Aquatic Nocturne

deep in liquidturquoise sliversof dilute lightquiver in thin streaksof bright tinfoilon mobile jet:pale flounderwaver bytilting silver:in the..

© Sylvia Plath

The Hanging Man

By the roots of my hair some god got hold of me.I sizzled in his blue volts like a desert prophet.The nights snapped out of sight like a lizard's..

© Sylvia Plath

The Stones

This is the city where men are mended.I lie on a great anvil.The flat blue sky-circleFlew off like the hat of a dollWhen I fell out of the light. I..

© Sylvia Plath

Candles

They are the last romantics, these candles:Upside-down hearts of light tipping wax fingers,And the fingers, taken in by their own haloes,Grown milky..

© Sylvia Plath

The Jailer

My night sweats grease his breakfast plate.The same placard of blue fog is wheeled into positionWith the same trees and headstones.Is that all he can..

© Sylvia Plath

To A Jilted Lover

Cold on my narrow cot I lieand in sorrow lookthrough my window-square of black:figured in the midnight sky,a mosaic of starsdiagrams the falling..

© Sylvia Plath

Magi

The abstracts hover like dull angels:Nothing so vulgar as a nose or an eyeBossing the ethereal blanks of their face-ovals.Their whiteness bears no..

© Sylvia Plath

Lament

The sting of bees took away my fatherwho walked in a swarming shroud of wingsand scorned the tick of the falling weather.Lightning licked in a yellow..

© Sylvia Plath

Witch Burning

In the marketplace they are piling the dry sticks.A thicket of shadows is a poor coat. I inhabitThe wax image of myself, a doll's body.Sickness..

© Sylvia Plath

adwigha, On A Red Couch, Among Lillies

Yadwigha, the literalists once wondered how youCame to be lying on this baroque couchUpholstered in red velvet, under the eyeOf uncaged tigers and a..

© Sylvia Plath

Childless Woman

The wombRattles its pod, the moonDischarges itself from the tree with nowhere to go.My landscape is a hand with no lines,The roads bunched to a..

© Sylvia Plath

Female Author

All day she plays at chess with the bones of the world:Favored (while suddenly the rains beginBeyond the window) she lies on cushions curledAnd..

© Sylvia Plath

Owl

Clocks belled twelve. Main street showed otherwiseThan its suburb of woods : nimbus—-Lit, but unpeopled, held its windowsOf wedding pastries,Diamond..

© Sylvia Plath

Family Reunion

Outside in the street I hearA car door slam; voices coming near;Incoherent scraps of talkAnd high heels clicking up the walk;The doorbell rends the..

© Sylvia Plath

Dirge For A Joker

Always in the middle of a kissCame the profane stimulus to cough;Always from teh pulpit during serviceLeaned the devil prompting you to laugh.Behind..

© Sylvia Plath

Love Is A Parallax

'Perspective betrays with its dichotomy:train tracks always meet, not here, but onlyin the impossible mind's eye;horizons beat a retreat as we..

© Sylvia Plath

Metaphors

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..

© Sylvia Plath