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").
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
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