Sylvia so near Valentine’s Day. Feb. 11. 1963

Sylvia so near Valentine’s Day. Feb. 11. 1963


I smell spinach
when I read Sylvia
Plath’s poetry.
The odour
not the writing I think
makes me nauseous.

The lumps of green,
not fresh green like
the silk of grasses

but boiled green-
because the nutrients
and the good stuff,

if there ever was any...
have been flushed out
by misguided metaphors
from limp green college instructors.
Speaking her vocabularies
of disjointed feelings
that would rather analyze

a life obsessed with dying.

A life obsessed with dying
where no critical words
are allowed as an epitaph.

As if a life obsessed with dying
is some cruel proof of having lived.

A life where fatal words
always lurked like
an ugly birthmark.
Which no one wished to be noticed.
Artfully disguised and avoided.
Invisible but there- like some colorless gas
for the one who inhales intoxicatingly
because the act of death
and the manner of death
somehow validates an excuse
for what we have become.

Because the first condition
of fame — is death.

Because an obsession with dying is proof
that there is, that there must be
poetry in life.
When starry—eyed students and profane publishers
never imagine existence...
except after death
is used for book—sale propaganda.

And we try and hide our eyes
and poke it with our forks hoping this vermillion blob
of unpleasant life
will never gag us again.

But it always returns. Like
the Valentine that is sent
year after year- wishing
to be your sweetheart —never accepting no for an answer.

Because love is an obsession
almost
as final as death.
Because love is an ultimate sacrifice.

Because by our sheer force of will
we believe
that love
in some form
must surely exist,
irrationally portioned out
to each of us. And we can attain
our share - with extreme acts.
Because love is an obsession
which sometimes we never outgrow.

Wishing our childhood dreams of love
could be made whole again,
after being dashed dashed dashed
repeatedly
against rejections
of concrete adulthood.

There’s nothing more repugnant than
overdone cold spinach.
Looking hideously green
like barbarous death
when it drops from the sky
onto your unsuspecting plate of experience.
And the image
and the memory never leave
but haunt
in nose, eyes,
and in your stomach when
you think of Sylvia’s serving
just herself.
A splat heap of jumbled verbs
placed
within an oven
while an overcooked soul oozed out
staining minds
with psychiatric appetizers.
Just enough for books and questions
to glorify a life’s maddening obsession. It makes my stomach queasy — whether it’s Sylvia or spinach.