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").

Medallion

By the gate with star and moonWorked into the peeled orange woodThe bronze snake lay in the sunInert as a shoelace; deadBut pliable still, his..

© Sylvia Plath

Sonnet : To Eva

All right, let's say you could take a skull and break itThe way you'd crack a clock; you'd crush the boneBetween steel palms of inclination, take..

© Sylvia Plath

Pheasant

You said you would kill it this morning.Do not kill it. It startles me still,The jut of that odd, dark head, pacingThrough the uncut grass on the..

© Sylvia Plath

Notes To A Neophyte

Take the general mumble,blunt as the faceless gutof an anonymous clam,vernacular as the strutof a slug or a small preambleby snail under hump of..

© Sylvia Plath

Magnolia Shoals

Up here among the gull crieswe stroll through a maze of palered-mottled relics, shells, clawsas if it were summer still.That season has turned its..

© Sylvia Plath

Letter To A Purist

That grandiose colossus whoStood astrideThe envious assaults of sea(Essaying, wave by wave,Tide by tide,To undo him, perpetually),Has nothing on..

© Sylvia Plath

The Companionable Ills

The nose-end that twitches, the old imperfections—-Tolerable now as moles on the facePut up with until chagrin gives placeTo a wry complaisance—-Dug..

© Sylvia Plath

The Princess And The Goblins

From fabrication springs the spiral stairup which the wakeful princess climbs to findthe source of blanching light that conjured herto leave her bed..

© Sylvia Plath

Suicide Off Egg Rock

Behind him the hotdogs split and drizzledOn the public grills, and the ochreous salt flats,Gas tanks, factory stacks- that landscapeOf imperfections..

© Sylvia Plath

Maenad

Once I was ordinary:Sat by my father's bean treeEating the fingers of wisdom.The birds made milk.When it thundered I hid under a flat stone.The..

© Sylvia Plath

On The Difficulty Of Conjuring Up A Dryad

Ravening through the persistent bric-à-bracOf blunt pencils, rose-sprigged coffee cup,Postage stamps, stacked books' clamor and yawp,Neighborhood..

© Sylvia Plath

Memoirs Of A Spinach-Picker

They called the place Lookout Farm.Back then, the sunDidn't go down in such a hurry. How itLit things, that lamp of the Possible!Wet yetLay over the..

© Sylvia Plath

Flute Notes From A Reedy Pond

Now coldness comes sifting down, layer after layer,To our bower at the lily root.Overhead the old umbrellas of summerWither like pithless hands...

© Sylvia Plath

Recantation

'Tea leaves I've given up,And that crooked lineOn the queen's palmIs no more my concern.On my black pilgrimageThis moon-pocked crystal ballWill break..

© Sylvia Plath

Private Ground

First frost, and I walk among the rose-fruit, the marble toesOf the Greek beauties you broughtOff Europe's relic heapTo sweeten your neck of the New..

© Sylvia Plath

The Beekeeper's Daughter

A garden of mouthings. Purple, scarlet-speckled, blackThe great corollas dilate, peeling back their silks.Their musk encroaches, circle after..

© Sylvia Plath

The Trial Of A Man

The ordinary milkman brought that dawnOf destiny, delivered to the doorIn square hermetic bottles, while the sunRuled decree of doomsday on the..

© Sylvia Plath

Eavesdropper

Your brother will trim my hedges!They darken your house,Nosy grower,Mole on my shoulder,To be scratched absently,To bleed, if it comes to that.The..

© Sylvia Plath

Denouement Villanelle

The telegram says you have gone awayAnd left our bankrupt circus on its own;There is nothing more for me to say.The maestro gives the singing birds..

© Sylvia Plath

The Rabbit Catcher

It was a place of force—The wind gagging my mouth with my own blown hair,Tearing off my voice, and the seaBlinding me with its lights, the lives of..

© Sylvia Plath

Face Lift

You bring me good news from the clinic,Whipping off your silk scarf, exhibiting the tight whiteMummy-cloths, smiling: I'm all right.When I was nine..

© Sylvia Plath

Doom Of Exiles

Now we, returning from the vaulted domesOf our colossal sleep, come home to findA tall metropolis of catacombsErected down the gangways of our..

© Sylvia Plath

The Beast

He was the bullman earliermKing of the dish, my lucky animal.Breathing was easy in his airy holding.The sun sat in his armpit.Nothing went moldy. The..

© Sylvia Plath

April Aubade

Worship this world of watercolor moodin glass pagodas hung with veils of greenwhere diamonds jangle hymns within the bloodand sap ascends the steeple..

© Sylvia Plath

The Ravaged Face

Outlandish as a circus, the ravaged faceParades the marketplace, lurid and strickenBy some unutterable chagrin,Maudlin from leaky eye to swollen..

© Sylvia Plath