The Bell Jar
__________________
“How can I accuse
Ted Hughes of what the
entire British and American
literary and critical
establishment has been
at great lengths to deny
without saying it in so
many words, of course,
the murder of Sylvia Plath?”
—Robin Morgan
“Arraignment,” Monster
______________________
Can a Bell Jar baby—
Especially a dead one
Talk in the night?
Using me like a—
Poetic tool to speak
From the grave again?
Can I be used—
And in demand from
Moment to moment?
____________________
Can he ride me?—
Ariel of the dawn
Onto this page?
HOW did I know—
Smith and Cambridge
Were waiting for me?
Here in London—
W.B. Yeats’ own flat
This cold winter?
____________________
And yet here—
I am beneath the
Bell Jar again
And here you are—
My young Ariel with
Your Pegasus wings
The Bell Jar I
That’s when Ariel—
Came into my life
Like the Pony Express
It didn’t take any—
Ouija board séances
With Miss Planchette
No troubling arcane—
Tarot deck quackings
With the Living Dead
____________________
No black magic—
“Who is he? Tell me?
The race track winner?”
Just Ariel inside me—
My own inner voice
A Madame Sosostris
Stoned on Hashish—
Famous clairvoyante
Lilacs from the Dead
_____________________
Wastrel wastelands—
Having moved on since
Miss Eliot’s Faber Inc.
Sipping their drinks—
There in the Stairwell
The Boys in the Band
Serpentine Auden—
His lizardy-scaled neck
Sipping his cocktail
__________________
Wolf-teeth Hughes—
Letting his arms down
To howl at the moon
Spinster Spender—
Wreathed with seaweed
And bored yawns
Madame Macneice—
Spawning silently in a
More sudden world
The Bell Jar II
I imagined him—
Arrayed on a nice
Ladies Day banquet table
With yellow-green—
Avocado pear halves
Stuffed with crabmeat
And slathered with—
Mayonnaise in the middle
Of rare roast beef
___________________
And cold chicken—
Art-glass bowls heaped
With black caviar
I’d never eaten out—
Such an exquisitely
expensive dish as him
Lucky for me that—
My all-protein diet kept
Me svelte and trim
__________________
Otherwise I’d have—
Blimped out after
Engorging myself so
The mountainous—
Centerpiece of marzipan
Fruit making me dizzy
Even tho seminal—
Caviar oozing outta
Hughes was gross
_________________
So gross and ugly—
I always made a pig
Outta myself over it
It was like he robbed—
The Country Club kitchen
And saved it for me
Amidst the clinking—
Water goblets & silverware
I spread Hughes thick
___________________
Thick as peanut butter—
All over my lips making
Sure it didn’t ooze awry
I was apprehensive—
At first but then if you’re
Arrogant anything’s permitted
Hughes was bad-mannered—
And poorly brought up but
His animality was perfect
_____________________
The more rude he got—
With his primitive Pike
The more I wanted him
My pale, stubby fingers—
Were all over his avocado
And crabmeat salad bowl
Drooling over the sauce
The Bell Jar III
Doreen kept asking—
“Did you get off?”
“Did you get off?”
I felt very low—
“Why not come to the
Fur Show with me?”
She kept repeating—
Herself I thought or
Was it just me?
_________________
I was tempted but—
I had my own fur show
With Ted Hughes
After all these years—
With good grades and
Prizes and grants
I felt like dropping—
Out of the race and
Just staying in bed
_________________
I didn’t care about—
Cambridge or caviar
Or cock anymore
I told Doreen that—
I wasn’t going anywhere
Anymore at all
And that I wasn’t—
Coming anymore with
Ted Hughes either
_______________
My breakfast in bed—
Ruined by all my tears
My lemon meringue mute
Studying and reading—
Writing and working didn’t
Interest me anymore
The New Yorker—
The cloying English Dept
Faculty wives bored me
_____________________
I’m not interested—
In anything anymore
I said quietly to myself
I hated Big Daddy—
My Deutsch Dick Father
My lover Ted as well
I didn’t give a fuck—
For Finnegan’s Wake or
Lady Chatterley either
____________________
What’s a girl to do—
In queer offbeat England
Simply bored with it all?
The Bell Jar IV
“It was a queer, sultry summer,
the summer they electrocuted
the Rosenbergs”—Sylvia Plath,
The Bell Jar
__________________
But in my head—
It was something else
Not the Rosenbergs
But rather Sylvia Plath
I kept dreaming—
About her that last
Night when Hughes
Murdered her
It’s like a hive—
Of buzzing bees in
My head that won’t
Let me sleep or dream
_______________________
When I do dream—
I turn into Ariel her
Wild stampeding fast
Thoroughbred mind
It’s like being—
Executed alive
Burning though all
Those little nerves
It sounds like—
The worst thing in
The world but then
You get used to it
_______________
I kept seeing—
Sylvia’s body sticking
Outta the stove
Shoved inside deep
Her head floated up—
Behind the olive in
My martini at a swank
Cocktail party once
Pretty soon—
Her Medusa gaze
Froze me tight
In my tracks
_______________
I was motionless—
I turned into a woman
As if Sylvia were a man
And me in drag
She was burning hot—
In that Cambridge cold
Her arctic academic life
Wanted hoodlum beauty
In my head her voice—
She wanted a Big Daddy
With a big dick instead
Of a big walrus toe
The Bell Jar V
I suppose I was—
The envy of everybody
With my Fulbright there
At famous Cambridge
With my size-seven—
Patent leather shoes
Bought in Bloomingdale’s
And my pretty smile
My black patent leather—
Belt and black patent
Leather pocketbook to
Match so very chic
__________________
My skimpy, imitation—
Silver-lamé bodice stuck
Onto a big fat cloud
Of delicate white tulle
My lovely all-American—
Bone-structure and skin
As smooth as a peach
I was ready for Hughes
I had my makeup kit—
Fitted out for a lady
With brown eyes and
Brown hair like mine
______________________
An oblong of mascara—
With a tiny brush and
Some blue eye-shadow
To dab my finger in
And three different—
Lipsticks from scarlet
To pink, all cased in
The box with a mirror
My sunglasses—
Were tear-drop shaped
With sequins and green
Stars pasted on neat
___________________
Ted had ten inches—
So that took care of all
My fussy little purse
Full of cosmetic shit
I didn’t have time—
Anymore for messing
Around playing cute
Schoolgirl games
I wasn’t just some—
Little Red Riding Hood
Chic amazed at how big
Grandma’s nose was
The Bell Jar VI
My troubles began—
With Hughes whose
Mouth was set in this
Perpetual sort of sneer
A nasty sneer—
And he’d whisper these
Witty sarcastic remarks
To me under his breath
He had this marvelous—
Animal intensity that
Really turned me on
Like a sexy light-switch
_____________________
He had this slightly—
Sweaty smell that sort
Of reminded me of a
Cheesy man’s shorts
He smoked cigarettes—
Letting his nostrils flare
Out when he let the
Smoke ooze downward
“It’s ugly as sin”—
He’d say, “I’d have to
Turn out the lights so
You wouldn’t puke.”
____________________
I wanted to see him—
All the way naked though,
His belly rippling as he
Smirked at me doing him
He was wise & cynical—
He’d lean against me so
Engagingly with this big
Toothpaste-ad smile
When he touched—
Me down there it was
Like the Rosenbergs
Getting zapped & fried
_____________________
He had this lowlife—
Know-it-all snicker that
Guys get when they think
They’re gonna get something
I felt gawky & morbid—
Bending down & doing him
The first time like I was in
Some carnival sideshow
Afterwards I kept staring—
At him as if he were a
Macaw in a zoo, waiting
For him to say something
____________________
Slowly with what—
Seemed a great effort
I dragged my eyes
Away from his dick
No wonder he was—
An Anthropology major
With that huge schwanz
Like the one he had
“Do all the young men—
From the Yorkshire moors
Have a piece of meat
Like the one you’ve got?”
____________________
It sounded like a—
Stupid question but then
I was just a naïve English
Major from Poughkeepsie
“What’s a nice girl like—
you doing with a name
like Elly Higginbottom or
is that your real name?”
I felt like a runt—
With my suede elevator
Shoes and dingy T-shirt
And blue sports coat
____________________
I kept pulling his skimpy—
Fruit-of-the-Loom shorts
Down and pretending I
Was going to bite it
But it was flat up—
Against his hard stomach
Up past his bellybutton
And was serious business
I felt like a circus—
Sword swallower and
It made me feel very
Powerful & godlike
__________________
“Stick around” he said
“You haven’t seen anything
yet. You like my muscle?”
I nearly fainted & died.
I sat there cross-eyed—
Like watching an Algerian
Belly dancer doing the
Hoochie-Koochie
There’s something—
Demoralizing about just
Watching a guy go crazy
Over himself in bed
________________
It’s like watching—
A guy fall deeper and
Deeper into himself
The more I did him
Hughes was like—
Totally in love with
Himself and I was
Just a bang & a kiss
The Bell Jar VII
Back in my apartment—
I propped myself up in
Bed with some pillows
I pretended I was—
Miss Proust writing a
Novel about Hughes
Ted would be my—
Faithless Augustine
Tricking on the side
____________________
My cute chauffeur—
Filling me with lovely
Temps perdu nostalgia
Except I hated him—
I was a man-hater now
All because of him
I leaned back—
And read what I’d
Written with a glance
____________________
A jaundiced glance—
If he only knew how
I really thought about him
Oh well, what difference—
Did it make, we’d never
Treat each other as adults
Inertia oozed like—
Molasses thru my limbs
Did I have malaise?
____________________
I the tore page up—
I needed more experience
Before writing a novel
How could I write—
About love without him
Doing me some more?
Maybe a short story—
About pygmies in Africa
Overly well-endowed?
____________________
Later at his apartment—
I crawled into bed and
Wanted to make love
His breathing was slow—
And steady, he was
Totally completely asleep
I reached under the—
Sheets and felt him up
He just kept snoring
____________________
It was hard and flat—
Up against his stomach
He didn’t wake up
Up past his bellybutton—
All the my to his tits
His nipples erect too
It was about as sexy—
As reading Finnegan’s Wake
Or going thru a phonebook
____________________
There wasn’t a market—
For MFA writing degrees
It all seemed senseless
They’d already fired—
All the writing instructors
They didn’t have tenure
I pulled a kinky pube—
From out between my teeth
What sharp incisors I had
____________________
He was snoring again—
His piggish noire demeanor
Such a tragic distraction
Bay of Pigs oinkings—
Ted’s Porky Pig prick
How can he be so crude?
And then out of the blue—
Hughes cut a juicy fart
Unpleasant stench indeed!
__________________
“How can I accuse
Ted Hughes of what the
entire British and American
literary and critical
establishment has been
at great lengths to deny
without saying it in so
many words, of course,
the murder of Sylvia Plath?”
—Robin Morgan
“Arraignment,” Monster
______________________
Can a Bell Jar baby—
Especially a dead one
Talk in the night?
Using me like a—
Poetic tool to speak
From the grave again?
Can I be used—
And in demand from
Moment to moment?
____________________
Can he ride me?—
Ariel of the dawn
Onto this page?
HOW did I know—
Smith and Cambridge
Were waiting for me?
Here in London—
W.B. Yeats’ own flat
This cold winter?
____________________
And yet here—
I am beneath the
Bell Jar again
And here you are—
My young Ariel with
Your Pegasus wings
The Bell Jar I
That’s when Ariel—
Came into my life
Like the Pony Express
It didn’t take any—
Ouija board séances
With Miss Planchette
No troubling arcane—
Tarot deck quackings
With the Living Dead
____________________
No black magic—
“Who is he? Tell me?
The race track winner?”
Just Ariel inside me—
My own inner voice
A Madame Sosostris
Stoned on Hashish—
Famous clairvoyante
Lilacs from the Dead
_____________________
Wastrel wastelands—
Having moved on since
Miss Eliot’s Faber Inc.
Sipping their drinks—
There in the Stairwell
The Boys in the Band
Serpentine Auden—
His lizardy-scaled neck
Sipping his cocktail
__________________
Wolf-teeth Hughes—
Letting his arms down
To howl at the moon
Spinster Spender—
Wreathed with seaweed
And bored yawns
Madame Macneice—
Spawning silently in a
More sudden world
The Bell Jar II
I imagined him—
Arrayed on a nice
Ladies Day banquet table
With yellow-green—
Avocado pear halves
Stuffed with crabmeat
And slathered with—
Mayonnaise in the middle
Of rare roast beef
___________________
And cold chicken—
Art-glass bowls heaped
With black caviar
I’d never eaten out—
Such an exquisitely
expensive dish as him
Lucky for me that—
My all-protein diet kept
Me svelte and trim
__________________
Otherwise I’d have—
Blimped out after
Engorging myself so
The mountainous—
Centerpiece of marzipan
Fruit making me dizzy
Even tho seminal—
Caviar oozing outta
Hughes was gross
_________________
So gross and ugly—
I always made a pig
Outta myself over it
It was like he robbed—
The Country Club kitchen
And saved it for me
Amidst the clinking—
Water goblets & silverware
I spread Hughes thick
___________________
Thick as peanut butter—
All over my lips making
Sure it didn’t ooze awry
I was apprehensive—
At first but then if you’re
Arrogant anything’s permitted
Hughes was bad-mannered—
And poorly brought up but
His animality was perfect
_____________________
The more rude he got—
With his primitive Pike
The more I wanted him
My pale, stubby fingers—
Were all over his avocado
And crabmeat salad bowl
Drooling over the sauce
The Bell Jar III
Doreen kept asking—
“Did you get off?”
“Did you get off?”
I felt very low—
“Why not come to the
Fur Show with me?”
She kept repeating—
Herself I thought or
Was it just me?
_________________
I was tempted but—
I had my own fur show
With Ted Hughes
After all these years—
With good grades and
Prizes and grants
I felt like dropping—
Out of the race and
Just staying in bed
_________________
I didn’t care about—
Cambridge or caviar
Or cock anymore
I told Doreen that—
I wasn’t going anywhere
Anymore at all
And that I wasn’t—
Coming anymore with
Ted Hughes either
_______________
My breakfast in bed—
Ruined by all my tears
My lemon meringue mute
Studying and reading—
Writing and working didn’t
Interest me anymore
The New Yorker—
The cloying English Dept
Faculty wives bored me
_____________________
I’m not interested—
In anything anymore
I said quietly to myself
I hated Big Daddy—
My Deutsch Dick Father
My lover Ted as well
I didn’t give a fuck—
For Finnegan’s Wake or
Lady Chatterley either
____________________
What’s a girl to do—
In queer offbeat England
Simply bored with it all?
The Bell Jar IV
“It was a queer, sultry summer,
the summer they electrocuted
the Rosenbergs”—Sylvia Plath,
The Bell Jar
__________________
But in my head—
It was something else
Not the Rosenbergs
But rather Sylvia Plath
I kept dreaming—
About her that last
Night when Hughes
Murdered her
It’s like a hive—
Of buzzing bees in
My head that won’t
Let me sleep or dream
_______________________
When I do dream—
I turn into Ariel her
Wild stampeding fast
Thoroughbred mind
It’s like being—
Executed alive
Burning though all
Those little nerves
It sounds like—
The worst thing in
The world but then
You get used to it
_______________
I kept seeing—
Sylvia’s body sticking
Outta the stove
Shoved inside deep
Her head floated up—
Behind the olive in
My martini at a swank
Cocktail party once
Pretty soon—
Her Medusa gaze
Froze me tight
In my tracks
_______________
I was motionless—
I turned into a woman
As if Sylvia were a man
And me in drag
She was burning hot—
In that Cambridge cold
Her arctic academic life
Wanted hoodlum beauty
In my head her voice—
She wanted a Big Daddy
With a big dick instead
Of a big walrus toe
The Bell Jar V
I suppose I was—
The envy of everybody
With my Fulbright there
At famous Cambridge
With my size-seven—
Patent leather shoes
Bought in Bloomingdale’s
And my pretty smile
My black patent leather—
Belt and black patent
Leather pocketbook to
Match so very chic
__________________
My skimpy, imitation—
Silver-lamé bodice stuck
Onto a big fat cloud
Of delicate white tulle
My lovely all-American—
Bone-structure and skin
As smooth as a peach
I was ready for Hughes
I had my makeup kit—
Fitted out for a lady
With brown eyes and
Brown hair like mine
______________________
An oblong of mascara—
With a tiny brush and
Some blue eye-shadow
To dab my finger in
And three different—
Lipsticks from scarlet
To pink, all cased in
The box with a mirror
My sunglasses—
Were tear-drop shaped
With sequins and green
Stars pasted on neat
___________________
Ted had ten inches—
So that took care of all
My fussy little purse
Full of cosmetic shit
I didn’t have time—
Anymore for messing
Around playing cute
Schoolgirl games
I wasn’t just some—
Little Red Riding Hood
Chic amazed at how big
Grandma’s nose was
The Bell Jar VI
My troubles began—
With Hughes whose
Mouth was set in this
Perpetual sort of sneer
A nasty sneer—
And he’d whisper these
Witty sarcastic remarks
To me under his breath
He had this marvelous—
Animal intensity that
Really turned me on
Like a sexy light-switch
_____________________
He had this slightly—
Sweaty smell that sort
Of reminded me of a
Cheesy man’s shorts
He smoked cigarettes—
Letting his nostrils flare
Out when he let the
Smoke ooze downward
“It’s ugly as sin”—
He’d say, “I’d have to
Turn out the lights so
You wouldn’t puke.”
____________________
I wanted to see him—
All the way naked though,
His belly rippling as he
Smirked at me doing him
He was wise & cynical—
He’d lean against me so
Engagingly with this big
Toothpaste-ad smile
When he touched—
Me down there it was
Like the Rosenbergs
Getting zapped & fried
_____________________
He had this lowlife—
Know-it-all snicker that
Guys get when they think
They’re gonna get something
I felt gawky & morbid—
Bending down & doing him
The first time like I was in
Some carnival sideshow
Afterwards I kept staring—
At him as if he were a
Macaw in a zoo, waiting
For him to say something
____________________
Slowly with what—
Seemed a great effort
I dragged my eyes
Away from his dick
No wonder he was—
An Anthropology major
With that huge schwanz
Like the one he had
“Do all the young men—
From the Yorkshire moors
Have a piece of meat
Like the one you’ve got?”
____________________
It sounded like a—
Stupid question but then
I was just a naïve English
Major from Poughkeepsie
“What’s a nice girl like—
you doing with a name
like Elly Higginbottom or
is that your real name?”
I felt like a runt—
With my suede elevator
Shoes and dingy T-shirt
And blue sports coat
____________________
I kept pulling his skimpy—
Fruit-of-the-Loom shorts
Down and pretending I
Was going to bite it
But it was flat up—
Against his hard stomach
Up past his bellybutton
And was serious business
I felt like a circus—
Sword swallower and
It made me feel very
Powerful & godlike
__________________
“Stick around” he said
“You haven’t seen anything
yet. You like my muscle?”
I nearly fainted & died.
I sat there cross-eyed—
Like watching an Algerian
Belly dancer doing the
Hoochie-Koochie
There’s something—
Demoralizing about just
Watching a guy go crazy
Over himself in bed
________________
It’s like watching—
A guy fall deeper and
Deeper into himself
The more I did him
Hughes was like—
Totally in love with
Himself and I was
Just a bang & a kiss
The Bell Jar VII
Back in my apartment—
I propped myself up in
Bed with some pillows
I pretended I was—
Miss Proust writing a
Novel about Hughes
Ted would be my—
Faithless Augustine
Tricking on the side
____________________
My cute chauffeur—
Filling me with lovely
Temps perdu nostalgia
Except I hated him—
I was a man-hater now
All because of him
I leaned back—
And read what I’d
Written with a glance
____________________
A jaundiced glance—
If he only knew how
I really thought about him
Oh well, what difference—
Did it make, we’d never
Treat each other as adults
Inertia oozed like—
Molasses thru my limbs
Did I have malaise?
____________________
I the tore page up—
I needed more experience
Before writing a novel
How could I write—
About love without him
Doing me some more?
Maybe a short story—
About pygmies in Africa
Overly well-endowed?
____________________
Later at his apartment—
I crawled into bed and
Wanted to make love
His breathing was slow—
And steady, he was
Totally completely asleep
I reached under the—
Sheets and felt him up
He just kept snoring
____________________
It was hard and flat—
Up against his stomach
He didn’t wake up
Up past his bellybutton—
All the my to his tits
His nipples erect too
It was about as sexy—
As reading Finnegan’s Wake
Or going thru a phonebook
____________________
There wasn’t a market—
For MFA writing degrees
It all seemed senseless
They’d already fired—
All the writing instructors
They didn’t have tenure
I pulled a kinky pube—
From out between my teeth
What sharp incisors I had
____________________
He was snoring again—
His piggish noire demeanor
Such a tragic distraction
Bay of Pigs oinkings—
Ted’s Porky Pig prick
How can he be so crude?
And then out of the blue—
Hughes cut a juicy fart
Unpleasant stench indeed!
No comments:
Post a Comment