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").
Ouija
It is a chilly god, a god of shades,Rises to the glass from his black fathoms.At the window, those unborn, those undoneAssemble with the frail..
© Sylvia Plath
Waking In Winter
I can taste the tin of the sky —- the real tin thing.Winter dawn is the color of metal,The trees stiffen into place like burnt nerves.All night I..
© Sylvia Plath
Moonrise
Grub-white mulberries redden among leaves.I'll go out and sit in white like they do,Doing nothing. July's juice rounds their nubs.This park is..
© Sylvia Plath
To Eva Descending The Stair
Clocks cry: stillness is a lie, my dear;The wheels revolve, the universe keeps running.(Proud you halt upon the spiral stair.)The asteroids turn..
© Sylvia Plath
Doomsday
DoomsdayThe idiot bird leaps out and drunken leansAtop the broken universal clock:The hour is crowed in lunatic thirteens.Out painted stages fall..
© Sylvia Plath
Man In Black
Where the three magentaBreakwaters take the shoveAnd suck of the grey seaTo the left, and the waveUnfists against the dunBarb-wired headland ofThe..
© Sylvia Plath
Gulliver
Over your body the clouds goHigh, high and icilyAnd a little flat, as if theyFloated on a glass that was invisible.Unlike swans,Having no..
© Sylvia Plath
Channel Crossing
On storm-struck deck, wind sirens caterwaul;With each tilt, shock and shudder, our blunt shipCleaves forward into fury; dark as anger,Waves wallop..
© Sylvia Plath
The Surgeon At 2 A.M.
The white light is artificial, and hygienic as heaven.The microbes cannot survive it.They are departing in their transparent garments, turned..
© Sylvia Plath
Soliloquy Of The Solipsist
Soliloquy Of The SolipsistI?I walk alone;The midnight streetSpins itself from under my feet;When my eyes shutThese dreaming houses all snuff..
© Sylvia Plath
Mary's Song
The Sunday lamb cracks in its fat.The fatSacrifices its opacity. . . .A window, holy gold.The fire makes it precious,The same fireMelting the tallow..
© Sylvia Plath
The Courage Of Shutting-Up
The courage of the shut mouth, in spite of artillery!The line pink and quiet, a worm, basking.There are black disks behind it, the disks of..
© Sylvia Plath
Amnesiac
No use, no use, now, begging Recognize!There is nothing to do with such a beautiful blank but smooth it.Name, house, car keys,The little toy..
© Sylvia Plath
The Ghost's Leavetaking
Enter the chilly no-man's land of aboutFive o'clock in the morning, the no-color voidWhere the waking head rubbishes out the draggled lotOf sulfurous..
© Sylvia Plath
Burning The Letters
I made a fire; being tiredOf the white fists of oldLetters and their death rattleWhen I came too close to the wastebasketWhat did they know that I..
© Sylvia Plath
I Want, I Want
Open-mouthed, the baby godImmense, bald, though baby-headed,Cried out for the mother's dug.The dry volcanoes cracked and split,Sand abraded the..
© Sylvia Plath
Aquatic Nocturne
deep in liquidturquoise sliversof dilute lightquiver in thin streaksof bright tinfoilon mobile jet:pale flounderwaver bytilting silver:in the..
© Sylvia Plath
The Hanging Man
By the roots of my hair some god got hold of me.I sizzled in his blue volts like a desert prophet.The nights snapped out of sight like a lizard's..
© Sylvia Plath
The Stones
This is the city where men are mended.I lie on a great anvil.The flat blue sky-circleFlew off like the hat of a dollWhen I fell out of the light. I..
© Sylvia Plath
Candles
They are the last romantics, these candles:Upside-down hearts of light tipping wax fingers,And the fingers, taken in by their own haloes,Grown milky..
© Sylvia Plath
The Jailer
My night sweats grease his breakfast plate.The same placard of blue fog is wheeled into positionWith the same trees and headstones.Is that all he can..
© Sylvia Plath
To A Jilted Lover
Cold on my narrow cot I lieand in sorrow lookthrough my window-square of black:figured in the midnight sky,a mosaic of starsdiagrams the falling..
© Sylvia Plath
Magi
The abstracts hover like dull angels:Nothing so vulgar as a nose or an eyeBossing the ethereal blanks of their face-ovals.Their whiteness bears no..
© Sylvia Plath
Lament
The sting of bees took away my fatherwho walked in a swarming shroud of wingsand scorned the tick of the falling weather.Lightning licked in a yellow..
© Sylvia Plath
Witch Burning
In the marketplace they are piling the dry sticks.A thicket of shadows is a poor coat. I inhabitThe wax image of myself, a doll's body.Sickness..
© Sylvia Plath