Read by me who possesses no acting ability whatsoever
I have done it again.
One year in every ten
I manage it——
A sort of walking miracle, my skin
Bright as a Nazi lampshade,
My right foot
A paperweight,
My face a featureless, fine
Jew linen.
Peel off the napkin
O my enemy.
Do I terrify?——
The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
The sour breath
Will vanish in a day.
Soon, soon the flesh
The grave cave ate will be
At home on me
And I a smiling woman.
I am only thirty.
And like the cat I have nine times to die.
This is Number Three.
What a trash
To annihilate each decade.
What a million filaments.
The peanut-crunching crowd
Shoves in to see
Them unwrap me hand and foot——
The big strip tease.
Gentlemen, ladies
These are my hands
My knees.
I may be skin and bone,
Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.
The first time it happened I was ten.
It was an accident.
The second time I meant
To last it out and not come back at all.
I rocked shut
As a seashell.
They had to call and call
And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.
Dying
Is an art, like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well.
I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I’ve a call.
It’s easy enough to do it in a cell.
It’s easy enough to do it and stay put.
It’s the theatrical
Comeback in broad day
To the same place, the same face, the same brute
Amused shout:
‘A miracle!’
That knocks me out.
There is a charge
For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge
For the hearing of my heart——
It really goes.
And there is a charge, a very large charge
For a word or a touch
Or a bit of blood
Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.
So, so, Herr Doktor.
So, Herr Enemy.
I am your opus,
I am your valuable,
The pure gold baby
That melts to a shriek.
I turn and burn.
Do not think I underestimate your great concern.
Ash, ash—
You poke and stir.
Flesh, bone, there is nothing there——
A cake of soap,
A wedding ring,
A gold filling.
Herr God, Herr Lucifer
Beware
Beware.
Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.
[…] Sunday Writing Prompt […]
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Artistic reading! I enjoyed it. Thanks for taking the time to perform this poem.
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Thank you I was never satisfied fully with the reading but I couldn’t keep my daughter from interrupting the recording haha
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I hope you’re not feeling sad because you chose this theme for today.
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I didn’t choose it as a reflection of my mood, it just happens to be one of my all time favorite poems and Sylvia Plath one of my favorite poets.
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Interesting poem, but I’ll give it a pass.
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[…] Black Out Poem for MindLoveMisery’sMenagerie Sunday Writing Promptbased on Sylvia Plath’s Poem, “Lady Lazarus” as seen with bold (Black Out) text […]
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[…] Written for: https://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2018/09/30/sunday-writing-prompt-lady-lazarus-sylvia-… […]
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[…] A stream of consciousness write in response to Yves’ Sunday Writing Prompt: Lady Lazarus/Sylvia Path. […]
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embrace
away from
the chaos of reality
in some utopian world
where everything is perfect
between you and me
let me sleep for a while
don’t wake me up
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[…] https://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2018/09/30/sunday-writing-prompt-lady-lazarus-sylvia-… […]
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[…] OctPoWriMo Day 1 the theme is surrender. Im combining with MindLoveMisery’s Menagerie Sunday Writing Prompt on the poem, “Lady Lazarus” by Sylvia […]
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[…] “Lady Lazarus by Sylvia Plath” w/Yves @ mlmm […]
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