Perfect Circle

without any end
with a broken pencil
I can try and draw
the perfect circle
of the universe but
it is frustrating
without a point
to keep on drawing

Fever 103° (by Sylvia Plath, 1962)

Pure? What does it mean?
The tongues of hell
Are dull, dull as the triple

Tongues of dull, fat Cerberus
Who wheezes at the gate. Incapable
Of licking clean

The aguey tendon, the sin, the sin.
The tinder cries.
The indelible smell

Of a snuffed candle!
Love, love, the low smokes roll
From me like Isadora’s scarves, I’m in a fright

One scarf will catch and anchor in the wheel,
Such yellow sullen smokes
Make their own element. They will not rise,

But trundle round the globe
Choking the aged and the meek,
The weak

Hothouse bred baby in its crib,
The ghastly orchid
Hanging its hanging garden in the air,

Devilish leopard!
Radiation turned it white
And killed it in an hour.

Greasing the bodies of adulterers
Like Hiroshima ash and eating in.
The sin. The sin.

Darling, all night
I have been flickering, off, on, off, on.
The sheets grow heavy as a lecher’s kiss.

Three days. Three nights.
Lemon water, chicken
Water, water make me retch.

I am too pure for you or anyone.
Your body
Hurts me as the world hurts God. I am a lantern—

My head a moon
Of Japanese paper, my gold beaten skin
Infinitely delicate and infinitely expensive.

Does not my heat astound you! And my light!
All by myself I am a huge camellia
Glowing and coming and going, flush on flush.

I think I am going up,
I think I may rise—
The beads of hot metal fly, and I love, I

Am a pure acetylene
Virgin
Attended by roses,

By kisses, by cherubim,
By whatever these pink things mean!
Not you, nor him

Nor him, nor him
(My selves dissolving, old whore petticoats)—
To Paradise.

Tropic

Wild nights
Smoking on
The veranda
Speaking loudly
The wet heat
Flows slowly
In our bones
Lamp posts shine
Long and soft
And the music
Is sad and low
A warm breeze
Blows gently
From ocean waves
To sandy beaches
Soaked in dreams
Of the old times

thoughts

are like insect wings and petals
dust and shrapnel metals
magnesium strips and ashes
leaves and windblown trashes
blowing flying here and there
whisked by winds everywhere
spinning wheeling shifting directions
jumping and dancing in dizzying motions