Burning The Love Letter

I made a fire; being tired
Of the white fists of old
Letters and their death rattle
When I came too close to the wastebasket
What did they know that I didn't?
Grain by grain, they unrolled
Sands where a dream of clear water
Grinned like a getaway car.
I am not subtle
Love, love, and well, I was tired
Of cardboard cartons
the color of cement or a dog pack
Holding in it's hate
Dully, under a pack of men in red jackets,
And the eyes and times of the postmarks.

This fire may lick and fawn,
but it is merciless:
A glass case
My fingers would enter although
They melt and sag, they are told
Do not touch.
And here is an end to the writing,
The spry hooks that bend
and cringe and the smiles, the smiles
And at least it will be
a good place now, the attic.
At least I won't be strung
just under the surface,
Dumb fish
With one tin eye,
Watching for glints,
Riding my Arctic
Between this wish and that wish.

So, I poke at the carbon birds in my housedress.
They are more beautiful than my bodiless owl,
They console me...
Rising and flying, but blinded.
They would flutter off,
black and glittering
they would be coal angels
Only they have nothing to say but anybody.
I have seen to that.
With the butt of a rake
I flake up papers that breathe like people,
I fan them out
Between the yellow lettuces
and the German cabbage
Involved in it's weird blue dreams
Involved in a foetus.
And a name with black edges

Wilts at my foot,
Sinuous orchis
In a nest of root-hairs and boredom...
Pale eyes, patent-leather gutturals!
Warm rain greases my hair,
extinguishes nothing.
My veins glow like trees.
The dogs are tearing a fox.
This is what it is like
A read burst and a cry
That splits from it's ripped bag
and does not stop
With that dead eye
And the stuffed expression, but goes on
Dyeing the air,
Telling the particles of the clouds,
the leaves, the water
What immortality is. That it is immorta
Sylvia Plath


Conversation Among the Ruins

Through portico of my elegant house you stalk
With your wild furies, disturbing garlands of fruit
And the fabulous lutes and peacocks, rending the net
Of all decorum which holds the whirlwind back.
Now, rich order of walls is fallen; rooks croak
Above the appalling ruin; in bleak light
Of your stormy eye, magic takes flight
Like a daunted witch,
Quitting castle when real days break.

Fractured pillars frame prospects of rock;
While you stand heroic in coat and tie, I sit
Composed in Grecian tunic and psyche-knot,
Rooted to your black look, the play turned tragic:
With such blight wrought on our bankrupt estate,
What ceremony of words can patch the havoc?
Sylvia Plath


Mad Girl's Love Song

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
I think I made you up inside my head.

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.

I think I made you up inside my head.

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.

I think I made you up inside my head.

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I think I made you up inside my head.
Sylvia Plath

Other Poems by Sylvia Plath

The Arrival of the Bee Box, Balloons,
The Babysitters, Barren Woman,
The Bee Keeper's Daughter, Bluebeard,
The Bee Meeting, A Birthday Present,
Bitter Strawberries, By Candlelight,
Dialogue Between Ghost and Priest,
Female Author, Last Words, Mirror,
Letter in November, Letter to a Purist,
A Winter Ship, Winter Trees,
Witch Burning

Quotes by Sylvia Plath

This seemed a dreary and wasted life for
a girl with fifteen years of straight A's,
but I knew that's what marriage was like,
because cook and clean and wash was just
what Buddy Willard's mother did from
morning till night, and she was the wife
of a university professor and had been a
private school teacher herself.
Sylvia Plath

And by the way, everything in life is
writable about if you have the outgoing
guts to do it, and the imagination to
improvise. The worst enemy to creativity
is self-doubt.
Sylvia Plath

I myself am the vessel of tragic experience.
Sylvia Plath

Poems by Famous Classical Poets
Love In The City
Wedding Customs Traditions and Superstions
Love Romance and Kisses
Romantic Love Quotes
Love and Romance Greeting Cards