The Resurrection
Of
Sylvia Plath
By Marc D. Goldfinger
Copyright 2000 by
Marc D. Goldfinger
Burnt Hippie/Flower Day Productions – Smashwords Edition
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For Mary Esther
“I am inhabited by a cry.
Nightly it flaps out
Looking, with its hooks, for something to love.”
Sylvia Plath, from the poem Elm, the book Ariel.
Walking Outside The Asylum With Sylvia Plath, December 15, 1952
by Marc D. Goldfinger
She hears the incarcerated scream, howl
inhuman cries. That's how
she describes it to her mother
in a letter. Listen to them, terrifying,
holy, shriek, it's enough to make you
religious, these are the prayers of people
who believe in God. Liquid
voices spit from barred windows, saliva
fills the air, the sun colours screams
crimson and freezes them over
black hills. Sylvia Plath wants
to crawl inside mad throats. She wonders
what the borders at the edge of the torn
lands feel like. She begs God
to give her knowledge.
Sylvia Flies Over Northhampton
Into the red
I am flying. A handsome pilot
at the throttle
are the controls. What is this
God with His hand on
the axis? How He flips
the ocean into light, floats
upside down
with a metallic wing over
my world.
The pilot turns, looks
at me, says “You
fly it.” So I do.
I take
the stick, tilting the clouds
below me, this is ecstasy
better than religion. I am so ripe
with life
you could bite right
into me. I would
burst like a pregnant
sledge-hammer into your mouth.
A Practical Girl
Brown hair, natural, it fades, a bit like me. Becoming
blonde, I might whirl about the sands, curl
my toes around conches, listen
to the roar of the surf. I am full of secret
passions, the grey suit I wear has a rainbow
lining, my inner clock is set
on alarm, I want to tear the white
flesh from the man's cheek who
loves me, below my sparkle eyes lingering
over your surprise. I fall into bed at an early
hour, slide my hands beneath my comforter, between
my legs, wet poetic fingers with myself, bite God's breath
and shudder. I come blonde, I come in
doubles, the true child of Dostoevsky, Raskolnikov's
hand trembling on my joy. Gasped so
hard my mouth lips dry in the wind, a twin
tongue flicks over my fingers come from my heat. I taste
scalded salt, rush my hand down into my
impatience, shut my long
thighs, pumping, stain the sheets. I love
you like this, you with the dark
face, below my eyeshadows, peer
into the mirror of myself. Blonde hair, mouth
packed with words, ready
to shriek them into Devil's ink, erect
breasts nipples hard between thumb
and finger, wanting to bite
you between my rabbit teeth, crime, crime,
I come like punishment.
The Night I Gave God My Clothes
Those clothes. Scattered about my hotel
room like discarded snake skins. When
I sent those clothes to heaven
in New York City, jealousy burned inside
me. What we discard can go places
we'll never know. What discards us
are the people we welcome
into our lives. What discards us are
the people God thrusts upon us. New York is so full
of mystery I could cover it
with my skin, give shadows shape. On this night
I stood on the balcony with my garments
at my feet. Grasped what once covered
me, piece by piece, day by day, part by part, placed
my old skins whiskering in the wind. Dark secret
places. Soon there was once a girl left standing
on the balcony. Now nothing but wind,
lights in my eyes. Naked. Willing. Bereft.
Electricity
On the third week without sleep
things began to get weird. Mother
locked away the sleeping pills. Imagine.
Days of infernal intolerable infinite
wakefulness interspersed with intermittant
electric executions. The first inkling of
what I might expect came when the Rosenbergs
were electrocuted for spying. I felt them
die. They were innocent too.
What It Was, Mother
It wasn't necessarily the rejection
from Frank O'Connor's summer
course at Harvard. Nor was
the month at Mademoiselle
unfruitful. Even ptomaine
from nasty crabs added
perspective to my
life, what with fainting, hypodermics,
wanting to die for only a day. Only
a day. It wasn't the men with
begging cups in the snake tunnel
subways or the grey matter
of my brain pressing me down, ripening
me like bad fruit. It wasn't
the way you looked at me in the rearview
mirror when you told me about the rejection.
New York City had crept
inside of me, turned me yellow outside, skewed
my thought patterns, I hold books
in my hands now, never open them. When you
tried to teach the Gregg shorthand system
to me, I didn't want to tell you there is no
quick way to die. It was so hard
to breathe, I thought I might bleed
instead. That's when I cut
myself for the first time, digging the metal
deep into my fair white legs. Of course, there were times
on electro-shock tables where God dug
His blue-volt fingers into the roots of my hair and yanked
Himself out of me.
But it wasn't until I jammed this
body into the dark basement
crawlspace behind the firewood, thrust
fifty sleeping pills down my hungry
throat into aching emptiness, when Christ
fucked me, split my loins with desire. Frank
O'Connor had nothing to do with it.
How I Found Out
The Warning
When the doctors cut deep into her
brain with steel knives, they knew
what they were doing. We women are
possessed by the devil. Men find
it necessary to slice the imp out of us. Separate
us from ourselves, divorce us
from our nature. Call her
Valerie. When she pushed aside
the bangs of her hair two pale
deathmarks showed on her forehead. Once
her spirit had begun to sprout forth,
like devil’s horns the men said, she was
whisked from home at her husband’s request.
When the electricity failed to sizzle her out, men
unsheathed their daggers. Now Valerie
smiles pleasantly, walks the grounds
of the hospital, never
wants to leave.
The Set-Up
Call her Joan. A horse
of a woman. The man
I wanted took her
to her prom. He paid for
that. I wanted him
until he wanted me. It was then my ardor
lessened. But it was
Joan we were talking about.
The school hockey champion.
If that was not enough, let me
say she was a physics major too.
Imagine! Did I say
she was the class president?
She strived for more out of life than
any woman of character deserved.
Not to mention teeth
as big as tombstones, eyes
of sand, and a voice
that had its own breath.
There was so much about her
I hated. I wanted every bit
of it to be me. Then I was
gifted by maturity and vision.
No one could give me what it
was I yearned for. I only
wanted to suck the tongue
of darkness. Lock my lips
to dreamless night. But Joan.
Let's not forget about her.
Little did I know. All this
time we shared similar hopes,
identical sorrows. When I disappeared
into my first suicide in a hole beneath
my mother's house, it was Joan
who loved me so much she tried
to follow me in. She went to
New York, looking for my lost
clothing, found them in a glass
window. Reached into it, shattered
it, raked her soft white wrists into
blood. We arrived at the same
hospital, shared adjoining rooms.
Joan smiled at me when I told her
"You're all right now." She looked
at me. Sand spilled from her eyes
into mine. "I guess so", she said. She
studied me intently. "Aren't you?"
The Execution.
Call me Sylvia. At the hospital I knew when
it was going to happen. No
breakfast tray. I watch
as all the nurses scurry from room
to room with trays of spam and eggs.
Hot cereal. Coffee and juice. There are
no last meals here, no one asks what
your final request might be. The first rule
at the asylum is:
THEY ALWAYS LIE TO YOU.
There is no second rule. The doctor
says it is like going to sleep. Go
back to the first rule. I try to
hide. There is nowhere to
go. I shuffle to the most secluded
corner of the asylum, curl into
the fetal position with a blanket
over my head. I want to
disappear. They want me to
vanish. Only angels can take me
the way I need to go. The doctor
comes. She is no angel. She told
me a long time ago she would be
the one to let me know before
it happens. She says,
“I’m letting you know.”
It is too late. There is a climb
into the bowels of the building.
A green door opens. A woman, tall,
frightening, masked, is at the head of the table
behind the machine. A mattress. Taut
sheets. Masked attendants. Armed robbers.
I climb onto the table. Leather straps
click into place, holding
you down. Salve on my temples,
electrodes into place, rubber
stick clasped between the teeth.
A switch, thrown.
Darkness erased me.
A Letter To Mummy, 24 February 1956
England has me on a such a tight tether
Dear mother, I think it might be the weather
To flick on the gas costs me a shilling
But the heat is only on one side;
on the other side it is damned chilling.
Yet I would rather be here than the United States
where they pack women into cramped little crates
Of course the sickbays here are absurd
I go in with the flu, come out like a turd.
This illness coincides with my monthly stain
I need respite from my body, especially my brain.
Letters, letters, letters from me to you
Of course nothing we write is absolutely true
My nose is oozing and red and I have trouble
arising from bed. I need you to cook me some broth
stuff my tattered nostrils with cloth.
I need a man to love me well
Perhaps some tall devil will deliver me to hell.
Ah, my head is too much a sewer.
My soul my tainted thoughts do skewer.
Dear mother, I'd rather be red than dead
dead than bled, waking up with a Ted
in my bed, she said, she said, I'll have
to bid my adieu's, adieu's, marry a dude
named Ted Hughes, enough of these words,
this letter is through, from me to you, adieu, adieu.
“When I Say I Must Write - - - -” 25 Jan. 1956
I mean nothing else matters. Publishing be damned, I’ll write
anyway. It is the horror of the blank
page that frightens me most. My inner life is nothing
but fragments, shards of glass, funhouse mirrors, I’ll tell
you in a letter what I want
you to hear, what I wish were the facts. The facts. How
different than truth, truth is in the mouth of the teller, the mind
of the beholder, truth is flesh. Facts are stone. Alas, I am
split between what is and what I say, what I want and what
I pray. My present is unwrapped, soiled by yesterday’s
fierce compression, by tomorrow’s terrors. I slip
into the present like it was a dirty dress, ripped, ravaged, stained.
It does not fit me well, I spill out like light, naked skin
strip-teasing me to the world, my nipple, a poem, the scars
on my thighs, private hair, the crack, a short story, my smile,
my mind. You want this piece, he wants that one, she wants
another, I barely want any of it, but all of it is not enough.
I write it , I tell it, I shape it, I shift it. This is my story, my truth,
my flesh. My flesh is the truth, what I write is stone.
Thinking Of You
I am wet with myself,
walk masked and made up, chat down
for tea. England fog obscures the leaves
dwelling at the bottom of my cup, no fortunes to be
read here. There is such an urgency to finish
things. I am quickly
speeding into destiny. We tarry so
briefly with those we love, those who
love us depart in barbed carriages tugged by night
coloured horses with whip flayed backs. Oh my! I meant
this to be a cheerful letter, coming so close
to Christmas too. I think I might travel
to Paris, stand on a cold, snowy corner with the gift you gave
me in my hands. I want to open it on that Day, find you inside.
Outside The Matisse Cathedral
Outside the nunnery I never
dreamed anyone might cast the gate
ajar, not for me. Men with eyes of brick brace
nunneries with stone walls about
them, keep the Sisters in, locked away -- only the
eyes of Sweet Jesus caress them when they drop
their black cloaks, kneel naked by simple cots, pray
for faith with slow hands. That cathedral -- small, pure, clean
cut, white, shut tight from the likes of me. My face tight
against the barred gate, sobbing relentlessly in hopeless
desire when her voice broke over me. "Ne pleurez plus,
entrez," and the Mother Superior let me in. Touched by her,
sun spilling over solid stone walls I fell to my knees
the heart of Christ beating my eyes with light. Had I
stayed within these walls the rest of my life
it all might have been different. Forget
poetry. Even stone would sing my song.
How I Come
Listen to my voice: angry, bitter, dark, gravel,
compressed. Difficult to believe I once went
to church, now I launch my poetry like a
doddering grey spews sputum. Not the husband,
the father, the mother, nay, the children either, it was
the poison arrows fired by the world within. No one
helped me die. I asked for help, where are
my Gods now? All
Lords of mirrors, the God we see is the God
we are. I shall draw my bath, drop myself
into the steaming broth, thrash madly
until the stains of my coming drop through
ceilings, floors, rugs, you will not walk
a step without treading on me. I have not
always been like this. Upon a time once
a young woman awaiting laughter, dance, white
wine. Then when I was already wounded
he came with another woman, took me
aside, ripped off my earring, wrenched the clip
from my hair. I bit him on the cheek, drew
his blood, that is why we married. There is
more to tell, his truth, my truth, God's
truth. Nothing holds up under
intense scrutiny. Death has
opened my eyes, now you desire me. I come
cloaked in language, the last betrayal.
I Gave Him The Phone
I felt it coming. She was thick
with herself, she had more than
enough to give. It was how she
disguised her thefts. Hidden beneath
long flowing coat and costume men
smelled her moisture, her earthen
desire. When she raised her silk
nightgown, dropped it over my
husband like a shroud, all his breaths
were filled with her scent. I felt
it coming. He went to her in
secret, penetrated her with his
poetry. One day I came
home early from shopping. The phone
was ringing. He fell
down the steps trying to
answer its insistent ring. I arrived
first. When I spoke
she answered. She lowered
her voice, tried to sound
like a man. She asked
for my husband. I did not
give him to her; I gave him
the phone. She took him.
Through the receiver, through
the tiny holes, sucked him in
like he was dusty straw. I felt
it coming. I gathered up
the children, drove and drove
and drove my car from one
emptiness to the next. I felt
it coming but it was him
who I gave my heart to,
him who I trusted, him
who killed me. Not her.
My Song
This is my fire. Everything ends
here. This is where the rubbish
burns. Page by page I throw in
this love, this story that will never
have become written. Not ink, not
words, but fire, smoke, ashes blow
in the ill wind. No one will read, no
one will reap fortune, instead of his
birthday present I give you fire
and smoke. Look, look, look mother
this is the book I wrote for Ted, look
these are the letters you wrote to
me, these are the rough drafts, the scum
from the desk of my husband who
is with her. This is my fire, the wind
lifts the ashes into the sky, whirling
swirling, I grasp hold of my dress, kick
my legs up and dance, dance, dance, listen
to the wind scream. This is my fire.
This is my song.
23 Fitzroy Road
(I)
On Fitzroy Road a shadow stands
at the window. Neighbors watch.
They think it is a woman they
know. Waiting for her true
love dressed in black costume.
Death comes dressed in colours,
a wool of night scrawled about
his neck. A noose. A muffler
to quiet a wife, a shadow, a stark
grimace. At the window a shadow
within shadow, within shadow, even
tempered. As light fades the shadow
stands longer, yet longer. The fingers
cold, wrapped in shawl, dead cold.
Ice on the glass. This shadow sees
its breath. From the underground
it comes, first the head, the neck
wrapped tight, eyes to match, deep
as cracked arctic snow. Flame
turned inwards. The neighbors
watch the shadow watch the man
come, then go. This will be the last
time. No one sees the shadow wrench
itself from the flesh, the breath stop.
(II)
No one stands at this window now.
The curtains drawn. Doors taped
shut, the oven open, folded cloth
a pillow. In another room, upstairs
an open window. The sound of children.
Winter sun. Cloaked mirrors. A book.
Sylvia And I Disagree
She tells me I haven’t lived the type of life
she has. I tell her I’ve been
to Harvard Square. She tells me I will never
understand love. I tell her I have seen the face
of death. She tells me loving her means I must love
Ariel too. I tell her I have always
been faithful. She tells me I am
not tall enough for her. I tell her when
we are naked and I am on my knees
in front of her, I will be just the right
height. She tells me I don’t have enough
words to speak her voice. I tell her
to spit into my ear, I can’t hear
spirits with their mouths full
of blood. She tells me she doesn’t
know why she likes me. I tell
her it is my illusion of idealism,
love and morbidity: All the women
I love are dead. She tells me to stop
reading her letters. I tell her
she was waiting all this time for
someone to send them to. She tells me I
don’t understand her poetry, why continue
this hopeless quest. I tell her her love
drives me into places where I might
never go. I offer her a bouquet of black
roses, I offer her my beating heart. She
says, I am going to let you do this
to me, she takes the roses, wraps her
other hand around my heart, squeezes.