Sylvia Plath -- Cut

[syntheticmuse.livejournal.com]

for Susan O'Neill Roe

What a thrill ----
My thumb instead of an onion.
The top quite gone
Except for a sort of hinge

Of skin,
A flap like a hat,
Dead white.
Then that red plush.

Little pilgrim,
The Indian's axed your scalp.
Your turkey wattle
Carpet rolls

Straight from the heart.
I step on it,
Clutching my bottle
Of pink fizz. A celebration, this is.
Out of a gap
A million soldiers run,
Redcoats, every one.

Whose side are they one?
O my
Homunculus, I am ill.
I have taken a pill to kill

The thin
Papery feeling.
Saboteur,
Kamikaze man ----

The stain on your
Gauze Ku Klux Klan
Babushka
Darkens and tarnishes and when
The balled
Pulp of your heart
Confronts its small
Mill of silence

How you jump ----
Trepanned veteran,
Dirty girl,
Thumb stump.

Comments

[silverflurry.livejournal.com]

ah yes. Dear Sivvy.
My favorite poet.
Good choice.

[syntheticmuse.livejournal.com]

i call her that too. :-) & yes, this & lady lazarus are my favorite poems by her. have you by any chance read her journals? s.

Re:

[silverflurry.livejournal.com]

Yes I have! Very intense stuff. Also I have a book called letters home which are letters she wrote to her mother from various times in her life.

[syntheticmuse.livejournal.com]

i've read letters home but i much preferred the journals...very intense stuff & since she isn't writing for her mom, she's more, well, passionate though that word doesn't do her personal writing justice. :-) s.

Re:

[silverflurry.livejournal.com]

I really enjoyed the journals too but I prefer her college time. She's so depressed when she's married to Ted it's sometimes hard to read those parts.

I liked Letters home a lot though because it gives a different perspective of her.

[cepebpo.livejournal.com]

I think Silverflurry said once that she knows someone who is Plath's reincarnate. =P

Re:

[silverflurry.livejournal.com]

ah yes this is true. :)