My Favorite Poems

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• "Ariel" by Sylvia Plath Visit Sylvia Plath's Page Read Poem

  Stasis in darkness.
  
  Then the substanceless blue
  Pour of tor and distances.
  
  God’s lioness,
  How one we grow,
  Pivot of heels and knees!—The furrow
  
  Splits and passes, sister to
  The brown arc
  Of the neck I cannot catch,
  
  Nigger-eye
  Berries cast dark
  Hooks—
  
  Black sweet blood mouthfuls,
  Shadows.
  
  Something else
  
  Hauls me through air—
  Thighs, hair;
  Flakes from my heels.
  
  White
  Godiva, I unpeel—
  Dead hands, dead stringencies.
  
  And now I
  Foam to wheat, a glitter of seas.
  
  The child’s cry
  
  Melts in the wall.
  
  And I
  Am the arrow,
  
  The dew that flies
  Suicidal, at one with the drive
  Into the red
  
  Eye, the cauldron of morning.

• "Lady Lazarus" by Sylvia Plath Visit Sylvia Plath's Page Read Poem

  I have done it again.
  
  One year in every ten
  I manage it——
  
  A sort of walking miracle, my skin
  Bright as a Nazi lampshade,
  My right foot
  
  A paperweight,
  My face a featureless, fine
  Jew linen.
  
  Peel off the napkin
  O my enemy.
  
  Do I terrify?
  
  ——
  
  The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
  
  The sour breath
  Will vanish in a day.
  
  Soon, soon the flesh
  The grave cave ate will be
  At home on me
  
  And I a smiling woman.
  
  I am only thirty.
  
  And like the cat I have nine times to die.
  
  This is Number Three.
  
  What a trash
  To annihilate each decade.
  
  What a million filaments.
  
  The peanut-crunching crowd
  Shoves in to see
  
  Them unwrap me hand and foot——
  The big strip tease.
  
  Gentlemen, ladies
  
  These are my hands
  My knees.
  
  I may be skin and bone,
  
  Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.
  
  The first time it happened I was ten.
  
  It was an accident.
  
  The second time I meant
  To last it out and not come back at all.
  
  I rocked shut
  
  As a seashell.
  
  They had to call and call
  And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.
  
  Dying
  Is an art, like everything else.
  
  I do it exceptionally well.
  
  I do it so it feels like hell.
  
  I do it so it feels real.
  
  I guess you could say I’ve a call.
  
  It’s easy enough to do it in a cell.
  
  It’s easy enough to do it and stay put.
  
  It’s the theatrical
  
  Comeback in broad day
  To the same place, the same face, the same brute
  Amused shout:
  
  ‘A miracle!’
  That knocks me out.
  
  There is a charge
  
  For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge
  For the hearing of my heart——
  It really goes.
  
  And there is a charge, a very large charge
  For a word or a touch
  Or a bit of blood
  
  Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.
  
  So, so, Herr Doktor.
  
  So, Herr Enemy.
  
  I am your opus,
  I am your valuable,
  The pure gold baby
  
  That melts to a shriek.
  
  I turn and burn.
  
  Do not think I underestimate your great concern.
  
  Ash, ash—
  You poke and stir.
  
  Flesh, bone, there is nothing there——
  
  A cake of soap,
  A wedding ring,
  A gold filling.
  
  Herr God, Herr Lucifer
  Beware
  Beware.
  
  Out of the ash
  I rise with my red hair
  And I eat men like air.

• "Ariel" by Sylvia Plath Visit Sylvia Plath's Page Read Poem

  Stasis in darkness.
  
  Then the substanceless blue
  Pour of tor and distances.
  
  God’s lioness,
  How one we grow,
  Pivot of heels and knees!—The furrow
  
  Splits and passes, sister to
  The brown arc
  Of the neck I cannot catch,
  
  Nigger-eye
  Berries cast dark
  Hooks—
  
  Black sweet blood mouthfuls,
  Shadows.
  
  Something else
  
  Hauls me through air—
  Thighs, hair;
  Flakes from my heels.
  
  White
  Godiva, I unpeel—
  Dead hands, dead stringencies.
  
  And now I
  Foam to wheat, a glitter of seas.
  
  The child’s cry
  
  Melts in the wall.
  
  And I
  Am the arrow,
  
  The dew that flies
  Suicidal, at one with the drive
  Into the red
  
  Eye, the cauldron of morning.

• "Lady Lazarus" by Sylvia Plath Visit Sylvia Plath's Page Read Poem

  I have done it again.
  
  One year in every ten
  I manage it——
  
  A sort of walking miracle, my skin
  Bright as a Nazi lampshade,
  My right foot
  
  A paperweight,
  My face a featureless, fine
  Jew linen.
  
  Peel off the napkin
  O my enemy.
  
  Do I terrify?
  
  ——
  
  The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
  
  The sour breath
  Will vanish in a day.
  
  Soon, soon the flesh
  The grave cave ate will be
  At home on me
  
  And I a smiling woman.
  
  I am only thirty.
  
  And like the cat I have nine times to die.
  
  This is Number Three.
  
  What a trash
  To annihilate each decade.
  
  What a million filaments.
  
  The peanut-crunching crowd
  Shoves in to see
  
  Them unwrap me hand and foot——
  The big strip tease.
  
  Gentlemen, ladies
  
  These are my hands
  My knees.
  
  I may be skin and bone,
  
  Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.
  
  The first time it happened I was ten.
  
  It was an accident.
  
  The second time I meant
  To last it out and not come back at all.
  
  I rocked shut
  
  As a seashell.
  
  They had to call and call
  And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.
  
  Dying
  Is an art, like everything else.
  
  I do it exceptionally well.
  
  I do it so it feels like hell.
  
  I do it so it feels real.
  
  I guess you could say I’ve a call.
  
  It’s easy enough to do it in a cell.
  
  It’s easy enough to do it and stay put.
  
  It’s the theatrical
  
  Comeback in broad day
  To the same place, the same face, the same brute
  Amused shout:
  
  ‘A miracle!’
  That knocks me out.
  
  There is a charge
  
  For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge
  For the hearing of my heart——
  It really goes.
  
  And there is a charge, a very large charge
  For a word or a touch
  Or a bit of blood
  
  Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.
  
  So, so, Herr Doktor.
  
  So, Herr Enemy.
  
  I am your opus,
  I am your valuable,
  The pure gold baby
  
  That melts to a shriek.
  
  I turn and burn.
  
  Do not think I underestimate your great concern.
  
  Ash, ash—
  You poke and stir.
  
  Flesh, bone, there is nothing there——
  
  A cake of soap,
  A wedding ring,
  A gold filling.
  
  Herr God, Herr Lucifer
  Beware
  Beware.
  
  Out of the ash
  I rise with my red hair
  And I eat men like air.

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