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.
