Home Back Issues Subscribe Submissions Archives Featured Authors About Us Staff

Sylvia Plath Died in a Bell Jar  

                                         

 

Sylvia Plath died in a bell jar,

and I know what that is like:

how scary the vacuum, how brittle

a wretched little human feels inside

opaque walls of touchless glass,

alone in a cavern of orderless madness.

 

The bell jar holds but three goodies:

the lunatic, the horror, and the longing,

longing for a banished world of beauty

and desire, senses and apples, children

and wine, yesterday and tomorrow…

 

but longing most for freedom, to be

free and pulsing like God-given amoeba

between scaleless walls of holy cement

binding earth and eternity—the freedom 

to feel as only a tiny human may feel

naked in a hot-cold world…

 

Sylvia, Sylvia, I read your poems, 

I read your book, I even read your life,

but Sylvia, lover I never had, it remains

you gassed yourself like Nazi and Jew

in one

and I do not reproach you for this, but 

only ask, did the death balance the life?

 

 

Nolo Segundo, pen name of L.j.Carber, 76, became a published poet in his 8th decade in 165 literary journals/anthologies in 12 countries on 4 continents. Nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, he’s a retired teacher [America, Japan, Taiwan, Cambodia]. The trade publisher Cyberwit has released 3 collections in paperback on Amazon: The Enormity of Existence [2020]; Of Ether and Earth [2021]; and Soul Songs [2022]. These titles reflect the awareness he’s had for over 50 years since having an NDE whilst almost drowning in a Vermont river: That he has—IS—a consciousness that predates birth and survives death, what poets have since Plato called the soul. 

 

Floyd County Moonshine, LLC, 720 Christiansburg Pike, Floyd, VA 24091-2440 USA

Copyright © 2008-2024 Floyd County Moonshine, LLC. All Images Copyright © Floyd County Moonshine LLC. ISSN 1946-2263