Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Poppies In July

Little poppies, little hell flames,
Do you do no harm?

You flicker. I cannot touch you.
I put my hands among the flames. Nothing burns

And it exhausts me to watch you
Flickering like that, wrinkly and clear red, like the skin of a mouth.

A mouth just bloodied.
Little bloody skirts!

There are fumes I cannot touch.
Where are your opiates, your nauseous capsules?

If I could bleed, or sleep!
If my mouth could marry a hurt like that!

Or your liquors seep to me, in this glass capsule,
Dulling and stilling.

But colorless. Colorless.

Sylvia Plath

And the raging swirl of depression rages.
Adieu.

5 comments:

The Harbour of Ourselves said...

love sylvia plath, and just noticed you like elliot smith - what a tragedy that was - if you like hum try jeff Buckley's CD 'grace'

miss v said...

Oh yes, I'll second that!
Plath and Buckley are regulars in my little world...
Grace. My. God. What a CD.
It's mindblowing, truly. I just don't have words that could do it justice...

Nikita said...

Paul you're right about Sylvia, of course, and yes - do you like Elliot Smith too? I actually ordered Grace today.
Now that's a risk of depression you don't hear about often...spending a week's wages in one day.
*hugs* Abs

mister tumnus said...

'litle bloody skirts'

she's so amazing, sylvia.

LauraEllen said...

yes, shes good. damned good. should be on the a-level eng lit syllabus, so many different things to pick up on there.

*hugs* Niki.