Poems on Sylvia Plath by Top Critiquers

not a Captain Obvious
pirating La Santa Poetica;
but, a substantial armament  
potent enough to shift  
oceanic plates of belief  
     into something rabid
—a bottom prowler  
    foaming at the mouth—
hooked on the taste of poem  
 
The blood jet is poetry  
and there is no stopping it
 
because once infected
                           you're owned  
~

(written for LSP's "Ode to the Female Poet" competition)


I am looking down on you, my love,
and quite sad among the quiet.
I see God in your eyes,
God is the light around you,

the halo that is your shoulders,
rib-cage, soft pockmark of your belly
in a lush tweed wave crowning
the midnight beach.

It has grown cold outside, too cold,
for the fingers weep and freeze
in place. I would wish to sit
and smoke, efface my eyes in such
a vapor, so I might never see again.

But there is a chill that bites,...

I fancied you’d return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.’
                      -Sylvia Plath
        
 
When did I become mad,
the day I began loving you,
singing in my head how we
are one instead of two
 
Or crashing ashore in winters wrath,
rockweed wringing hands around
granite boulders moved only in storms  
at highest peaks of existence
where you were there, only you and I
and the fullest moon ---
A lunacy!
 
Did you ever envision me  
that I might...