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").
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
Dark Wood, Dark Water
This wood burns a darkIncense. Pale moss dripsIn elbow-scarves, beardsFrom the archaicBones of the great trees.Blue mists move overA lake thick with..
© Sylvia Plath
The Goring
Arena dust rusted by four bulls' blood to a dull redness,The afternoon at a bad end under the crowd's truculence,The ritual death each time botched..
© Sylvia Plath
Point Shirley
From Water-Tower Hill to the brick prisonThe shingle booms, bickering underThe sea's collapse.Snowcakes break and welter. This yearThe gritted wave..
© Sylvia Plath
The Babysitters
It is ten years, now, since we rowed to Children's Island.The sun flamed straight down that noon on the water off Marblehead.That summer we wore..
© Sylvia Plath
The Manor Garden
The fountains are dry and the roses over.Incense of death. Your day approaches.The pears fatten like little buddhas.A blue mist is dragging the..
© Sylvia Plath
Little Fugue
The yew's black fingers wag:Cold clouds go over.So the deaf and dumbSignal the blind, and are ignored.I like black statements.The featurelessness of..
© Sylvia Plath
Widow
Widow. The word consumes itself —-Body, a sheet of newsprint on the fireLevitating a numb minute in the updraftOver the scalding, red topographyThat..
© Sylvia Plath
The Shrike
When night comes blackSuch royal dreams beckon this manAs lift him apartFrom his earth-wife's sideTo wing, sleep-feathered,The singular air,While..
© Sylvia Plath
Song For A Summer's Day
Through fen and farmland walkingWith my own country loveI saw slow flocked cows moveWhite hulks on their day's cruising;Sweet grass sprang for their..
© Sylvia Plath
Brasilia
Will they occur,These people with torso of steelWinged elbows and eyeholesAwaiting massesOf cloud to give them expression,These super-people! -And my..
© Sylvia Plath
Miss Drake Proceeds To Supper
No noviceIn those elaborate ritualsWhich allay the maliceOf knotted table and crooked chair,The new woman in the wardWears purple, steps..
© Sylvia Plath