Prison Song

A poem by Alan Dugan

The skin ripples over my body like moon-wooed water,

rearing to escape me. Where could it find another

animal as naked as the one it hates to cover?

Once it told me what was happening outside,

who was attacking, who caressing, and what the air

was doing to feed or freeze me. Now I wake up

dark at night, in a textureless ocean of ignorance,

or fruit bites back and water bruises like a stone.

It’s jealousy, because I look for other tools to know

with, and other armor, better girded to my wish.

So let it lie, turn off the clues or try to leave:

sewn on me seamless like those painful shirts

the body-hating saints wore, the sheath of hell

is pierced to my darkness nonetheless: what traitors

labor in my face, what hints they smuggle through

its arching guard! But even in the night it jails,

with nothing but its lies and silences to feed upon,

the jail itself can make a scenery, sing prison songs,

and set off fireworks to praise a homemade day.

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Poems in English 

• Leaving Early by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• Last Words by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• Landowners by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• Insolent Storm Strikes At The Skull by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• In Plaster by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• In Midas’ Country by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• Go Get The Goodly Squab by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• For A Fatherless Son by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• Flute Notes From A Reedy Pond by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• Faun by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• Family Reunion by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• Fable Of The Rhododendron Stealers by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• Epitaph In Three Parts by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• Epitaph For Fire And Flower by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• Electra On Azalea Path by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• Dream With Clam-Diggers by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• Doom Of Exiles by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• Dirge For A Joker by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• Death & Co. by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• Crossing The Water by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath

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Duckduckgo – the real alternative and a search engine that actually works. Without much censorship or partisan politics.

Yahoo– yes, it’s still around, amazingly, miraculously, incredibly, but now it seems to be powered by Bing.

 

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