Plath-Roethke Series
1. Roethke
“O the beauty
of usage!”
—Sylvia Plath
Poem for a Birthday
Let me float in this pool.
The ladies won’t mind.
My heart a stopped geranium.
The water in my lungs.
I’m blooming upside-down.
My breath a still hydrangea.
Cemetery stones console me.
Beneath Saginaw grasses.
I hibernate down here.
Dead poets have no eyes.
The cemetery is full of those.
Who think they are birds.
I’m a root, stone, dream.
I used to teach poetry.
It’s still all I think about.
2. The Blue Moon Tavern
“This is a dark house”
—Sylvia Plath,
Poem for A Birthday
It’s a dark tavern.
Not big, by the freeway.
I drink in a private corner.
Thinking of something else.
So many U-District bars.
Full of young eely delvings.
Oozing the wiggling glue.
Roethke would love it.
He sleeps in a pool.
On Bainbridge Island.
Three perfect mint juleps.
Now a Zen garden.
Elizabeth Bishop.
She replaced Roethke.
Lived awhile here.
Last Exit on Brooklyn.
3. Neptune Theater
“Once I was ordinary”
—Sylvia Plath,
Poem for A Birthday
It was 1969.
Nixon was president.
Viet Nam raged on.
Things were gloomy.
After Cambodia.
They closed it down.
The Freeway clogged.
No traffic moved.
On the brick wall.
The Blue Moon Tavern.
Spray-painted: America
Gets What It Deserves.
That Xmas night.
Watching Romero.
Night of the Living Dead.
At the Neptune.
4. Post-Roethke
“Now coldness comes”
—Sylvia Plath,
Poem for A Birthday
Now 40 years later.
Nixon is dead.
Viet Nam is over.
The Neptune still here.
Roethke is dead.
Ted Hughes is dead.
Overhead the monsoon.
Rain of forgetfulness.
Blue Moon still here.
But Last Exit gone.
Hippie U-district gone.
But war is still here.
The living undead.
Nixon-clones smile.
They learn from us.
Correct their mistakes.
5. Last Exit on Brooklyn
“The wax image
of myself”
—Sylvia Plath,
Poem for A Birthday
If you live long enough.
And don’t burn your
Candle at both ends.
You might survive.
Funny how time works.
A thicket of shadows.
A dartboard for love.
All those lost lovers.
If you survive them.
Along with Nixon.
And the war in Nam.
The devil loses.
But the burners.
They’re always hot.
Ring after ring.
Turning up the heat.
6. Stoned
“I lie on a great anvil”
—Sylvia Plath,
Poem for A Birthday
This is the city.
Where I got stoned.
Beneath a scudding sky.
Just call me road-kill.
This is the city.
Mother-lode of pestles.
It grinds you up.
And spits you out.
This is the city.
A quarry of silences.
Stoic, taciturn, loaded.
Happy as a slug.
Thru a stone eye.
The daylight is dim.
Seattle is sameness.
Full of spare parts.
The Queen of Hearts.
Offed by head long ago.
Dead men have no eyes.
Love an elusive boner.
A city without tears.
Its rainy streets itch.
It’s got two heads.
It’s got ten fingers.
1. Roethke
“O the beauty
of usage!”
—Sylvia Plath
Poem for a Birthday
Let me float in this pool.
The ladies won’t mind.
My heart a stopped geranium.
The water in my lungs.
I’m blooming upside-down.
My breath a still hydrangea.
Cemetery stones console me.
Beneath Saginaw grasses.
I hibernate down here.
Dead poets have no eyes.
The cemetery is full of those.
Who think they are birds.
I’m a root, stone, dream.
I used to teach poetry.
It’s still all I think about.
2. The Blue Moon Tavern
“This is a dark house”
—Sylvia Plath,
Poem for A Birthday
It’s a dark tavern.
Not big, by the freeway.
I drink in a private corner.
Thinking of something else.
So many U-District bars.
Full of young eely delvings.
Oozing the wiggling glue.
Roethke would love it.
He sleeps in a pool.
On Bainbridge Island.
Three perfect mint juleps.
Now a Zen garden.
Elizabeth Bishop.
She replaced Roethke.
Lived awhile here.
Last Exit on Brooklyn.
3. Neptune Theater
“Once I was ordinary”
—Sylvia Plath,
Poem for A Birthday
It was 1969.
Nixon was president.
Viet Nam raged on.
Things were gloomy.
After Cambodia.
They closed it down.
The Freeway clogged.
No traffic moved.
On the brick wall.
The Blue Moon Tavern.
Spray-painted: America
Gets What It Deserves.
That Xmas night.
Watching Romero.
Night of the Living Dead.
At the Neptune.
4. Post-Roethke
“Now coldness comes”
—Sylvia Plath,
Poem for A Birthday
Now 40 years later.
Nixon is dead.
Viet Nam is over.
The Neptune still here.
Roethke is dead.
Ted Hughes is dead.
Overhead the monsoon.
Rain of forgetfulness.
Blue Moon still here.
But Last Exit gone.
Hippie U-district gone.
But war is still here.
The living undead.
Nixon-clones smile.
They learn from us.
Correct their mistakes.
5. Last Exit on Brooklyn
“The wax image
of myself”
—Sylvia Plath,
Poem for A Birthday
If you live long enough.
And don’t burn your
Candle at both ends.
You might survive.
Funny how time works.
A thicket of shadows.
A dartboard for love.
All those lost lovers.
If you survive them.
Along with Nixon.
And the war in Nam.
The devil loses.
But the burners.
They’re always hot.
Ring after ring.
Turning up the heat.
6. Stoned
“I lie on a great anvil”
—Sylvia Plath,
Poem for A Birthday
This is the city.
Where I got stoned.
Beneath a scudding sky.
Just call me road-kill.
This is the city.
Mother-lode of pestles.
It grinds you up.
And spits you out.
This is the city.
A quarry of silences.
Stoic, taciturn, loaded.
Happy as a slug.
Thru a stone eye.
The daylight is dim.
Seattle is sameness.
Full of spare parts.
The Queen of Hearts.
Offed by head long ago.
Dead men have no eyes.
Love an elusive boner.
A city without tears.
Its rainy streets itch.
It’s got two heads.
It’s got ten fingers.
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