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").

Whitsun

This is not what I meant:Stucco arches, the banked rocks sunning in rows,Bald eyes or petrified eggs,Grownups coffined in stockings and..

© Sylvia Plath

Terminal

Riding home from credulous blue domes,the dreamer reins his waking appetitein panic at the crop of catacombssprung up like plague of toadstools..

© Sylvia Plath

Event

How the elements solidify! —-The moonlight, that chalk cliffIn whose rift we lieBack to back. I hear an owl cryFrom its cold indigo.Intolerable..

© Sylvia Plath

Blue Moles

1They're out of the dark's ragbag, these twoMoles dead in the pebbled rut,Shapeless as flung gloves, a few feet apart —-Blue suede a dog or fox has..

© Sylvia Plath

The Great Carbuncle

We came over the moor-topThrough air streaming and green-lit,Stone farms foundering in it,Valleys of grass alteringIn a light neither dawnNor..

© Sylvia Plath

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