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").
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
Stars Over The Dordogne
Stars are dropping thick as stones into the twiggyPicket of trees whose silhouette is darkerThan the dark of the sky because it is quite starless.The..
© Sylvia Plath
Departure
The figs on the fig tree in the yard are green;Green, also, the grapes on the green vineShading the brickred porch tiles.The money's run out.How..
© Sylvia Plath
Maudlin
Mud-mattressed under the sign of the hagIn a clench of blood, the sleep-talking virginGibbets with her curse the moon's man,****-bearing Jack in his..
© Sylvia Plath
Crystal Gazer
Gerd sits spindle-shaped in her dark tent,Lean face gone tawn with seasons ,Skin worn down to the knucklebonesAt her tough trade; without time's..
© Sylvia Plath
The Lady And The Earthenware Head
Fired in sanguine clay, the model headFit nowhere: brickdust-complected, eye under a dense lid,On the long bookshelf it stoodStolidly propping thick..
© Sylvia Plath
The Tour
O maiden aunt, you have come to call.Do step into the hall!With your boldGecko, the little flick!All cogs, weird sparkle and every cog solid gold.And..
© Sylvia Plath
Who
The month of flowering's finished. The fruit's in,Eaten or rotten. I am all mouth.October's the month for storage.Thie shed's fusty as a mummy's..
© Sylvia Plath
Child's Park Stones
In sunless air, under pinesGreen to the point of blackness, someFounding father set these lobed, warped stonesTo loom in the leaf-filtered gloomBlack..
© Sylvia Plath
The Hermit At Outermost House
Sky and sea, horizon-hingedTablets of blank blue, couldn't,Clapped shut, flatten this man out.The great gods, Stone-Head, Claw-FootWinded by much..
© Sylvia Plath
Dark House
This is a dark house, very big.I made it myself,Cell by cell from a quiet corner,Chewing at the grey paper,Oozing the glue drops,Whistling, wiggling..
© Sylvia Plath
Frog Autumn
Summer grows old, cold-blooded mother.The insects are scant, skinny.In these palustral homes we onlyCroak and wither.Mornings dissipate in..
© Sylvia Plath
Green Rock, Winthrop Bay
No lame excuses can gloss overBarge-tar clotted at the tide-line, the wrecked pier.I should have known better.Fifteen years between me and the..
© Sylvia Plath
The Everlasting Monday
Thou shalt have an everlastingMonday and stand in the moon.The moon's man stands in his shell,Bent under a bundleOf sticks. The light falls chalk and..
© Sylvia Plath
For A Fatherless Son
You will be aware of an absence, presently,Growing beside you, like a tree,A death tree, color gone, an Australian gum tree —-Balding, gelded by..
© Sylvia Plath
The Fearful
This man makes a pseudonymAnd crawls behind it like a worm.This woman on the telephoneSays she is a man, not a woman.The mask increases, eats the..
© Sylvia Plath
Stopped Dead
A squeal of brakes.Or is it a birth cry?And here we are, hung out over the dead dropUncle, pants factory Fatso, millionaire.And you out cold beside..
© Sylvia Plath
Circus in Three Rings
In the circus tent of a hurricanedesigned by a drunken godmy extravagant heart blows up againin a rampage of champagne-colored rainand the fragments..
© Sylvia Plath
Watercolor Of Grantchester Meadows
There, spring lambs jam the sheepfold. In airStilled, silvered as water in a glassNothing is big or far.The small shrew chitters from its..
© Sylvia Plath
Firesong
Born green we wereto this flawed garden,but in speckled thickets, warted as a toad,spitefully skulks our warden,fixing his snarewhich hauls down..
© Sylvia Plath
Hardcastle Crags
Flintlike, her feet struckSuch a racket of echoes from the steely street,Tacking in moon-blued crooks from the blackStone-built town, that she heard..
© Sylvia Plath