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intertribalfrom "Wanting to Die" by Anne Sexton, a good friend, colleague, and fellow suicide of Sylvia Plath:
by Jack Folsom, a Sylvia Plath "specialist", "The Poet in Residence":
Inside the flat she rents
she lives in a moon mirror.
She subsists on hot words
broiled under the cold dawns.
At night by candle-light
she counts the shadows
dancing on the white walls
before her sleeping time.
In the grey winter morning
she parts the window curtains.
She peers down at heads wrapped in scarves,
at legs shuffling footless in the snow.
In the dark of afternoon
she watches faceless forms crossing streets.
They crease the freezing ruts
in her forehead as she turns away.
from "In Sylvia Plath Country" by Erica Jong:
The skin of the sea
has nothing to tell me
I see her diving down
into herself --
past the bell-shaped jellyfish
who toll for no one--
& meaning to come back.
**
This is her own country--
the sea, the rain
& death half rhyming
with her father's name.
**
what could we tell you
after you dove down into yourself
& were swallowed
by your poems?
Since you ask, most days I cannot remember.
I walk in my clothing, unmarked by that voyage.
Then the most unnameable lust returns.
Even then I have nothing against life.
I know well the grass blades you mention
the furniture you have placed under the sun.
by Jack Folsom, a Sylvia Plath "specialist", "The Poet in Residence":
Inside the flat she rents
she lives in a moon mirror.
She subsists on hot words
broiled under the cold dawns.
At night by candle-light
she counts the shadows
dancing on the white walls
before her sleeping time.
In the grey winter morning
she parts the window curtains.
She peers down at heads wrapped in scarves,
at legs shuffling footless in the snow.
In the dark of afternoon
she watches faceless forms crossing streets.
They crease the freezing ruts
in her forehead as she turns away.
from "In Sylvia Plath Country" by Erica Jong:
The skin of the sea
has nothing to tell me
I see her diving down
into herself --
past the bell-shaped jellyfish
who toll for no one--
& meaning to come back.
**
This is her own country--
the sea, the rain
& death half rhyming
with her father's name.
**
what could we tell you
after you dove down into yourself
& were swallowed
by your poems?
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no subject
Date: 2007-01-20 01:29 pm (UTC)Live
Live or die, but don't poison everything . . .
Well, death's been here
for a long time--
it has a hell of a lot
to do with hell
and suspicion of the eye
and the religious objects
and how I morned them
when they were made obscene
by my dwarf-heart's doodle.
The chief ingredient
is mutilation.
And mud, day after day,
mud like a ritual,
and the baby on the platter,
cooked but still human,
cooked also with little maggots,
sewn onto it maybe by somebody's mother,
the damn bitch!
Even so,
I kept right on going on,
a sort of human statement,
lugging myself as if
I were a sawed-off body
in the trunk, the steamer trunk.
This became a perjury of the soul.
It became an outright lie
and even though I dressed the body
it was still naked, still killed.
It was caught
in the first place at birth,
like a fish.
But I played it, dressed it up,
dressed it up like somebody's doll.
Is life something you play?
And all the time wanting to get rid of it?
And further, everyone yelling at you
to shut up. And no wonder!
People don't like to be told
that you're sick
and then be forced
to watch
you
come
down with the hammer.
Today life opened inside me like an egg
and there inside
after considerable digging
I found the answer.
What a bargain!
There was the sun,
her yolk moving feverishly,
tumbling her prize --
and you realize she does this daily!
I'd known she was a purifier
but I hadn't thought
she was solid,
hadn't known she was an answer.
God! It's a dream,
lovers sprouting in the yard
like celery stalks
and better,
a husband straight as a redwood,
two daughters, two sea urchings,
picking roses off my hackles.
If I'm on fire they dance around it
and cook marshmallows.
And if I'm ice
they simply skate on me
in little ballet costumes.
Here,
all along,
thinking I was a killer,
anointing myself daily
with my little poisons.
But no.
I'm an empress.
I wear an apron.
My typewriter writes.
It didn't break the way it warned.
Even crazy, I'm as nice
as a chocolate bar.
Even with the witches' gymnastics
they trust my incalculable city,
my corruptible bed.
O dearest three,
I make a soft reply.
The witch comes on
and you paint her pink.
I come with kisses in my hood
and the sun, the smart one,
rolling in my arms.
So I say Live
and turn my shadow three times round
to feed our puppies as they come,
the eight Dalmatians we didn't drown,
despite the warnings: The abort! The destroy!
Despite the pails of water that waited,
to drown them, to pull them down like stones,
they came, each one headfirst, blowing bubbles the color of cataract-blue
and fumbling for the tiny tits.
Just last week, eight Dalmatians,
3/4 of a lb., lined up like cord wood
each
like a
birch tree.
I promise to love more if they come,
because in spite of cruelty
and the stuffed railroad cars for the ovens,
I am not what I expected. Not an Eichmann.
The poison just didn't take.
So I won't hang around in my hospital shift,
repeating The Black Mass and all of it.
I say Live, Live because of the sun,
the dream, the excitable gift.
Anyway, I don't know--are you okay? ...and if there's anything I can do, let me know. I do not know why you say you are in misery but your mood is listless and later hungry. I do not understand the workings of your world because I am so far from it. But I try... And I send love, and many hopes.