March 8, 2008

Poppies in July


"Little poppies, little hell flames,
Do you do no harm?

You flicker. I cannot touch you.
I put my hands among the flames. Nothing burns.

And it exhausts me to watch you
Flickering like that, wrinkly and clear red, like the skin of a mouth.

A mouth just bloodied.
Little bloody skirts!

There are fumes that I cannot touch.
Where are your opiates, your nauseous capsules?

If I could bleed, or sleep! --
If my mouth could marry a hurt like that!

Or your liquors seep to me, in this glass capsule,
Dulling and stilling.

But colourless. Colourless."

- Sylvia Plath
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I have been reading the poems in Ariel by Sylvia Plath. I have never been as interested in poetry as I have with other forms of writing, mainly because I do not understand poetry. Nevertheless, she is amazing.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

not so big on the poem (sorry), but i love the picture. It really captures the flimsiness of the flower (its tissue paper-thin petals seem so vulnerable in the open air!), while also displaying the plant's strength and resilience (the bold colors, the fact that its standing alone?).

...
ok, i have no idea what i just wrote. it just sounds like a bunch of superfluous babble.