The Hanging Man
By the roots of my hair some god got hold of me.
I sizzled in his blue volts like a desert prophet.
The nights snapped out of sight like a lizard's eyelid :
A world of bald white days in a shadeless socket.
A vulturous boredom pinned me in this tree.
If he were I, he would do what I did.
-Sylvia Plath, Ariel
After reading "Strange Fruit," I read a black man hanging. The roots of his hair and the world of bald white in the first two stanzas. Then after reading "Overwhelmed Eureka," I'm wondering what crime the man was accused or or committed? Then thinking about Plath and his struggles with suicidal thoughts, I think of suicide.
ReplyDeleteThe "vulturous boredom" reminds me of my envy for boredom. I tell bored people I can't remember the last time I was bored. When I think of someone with the free time to get bored, I think of all the hobbies I don't have time for and I'd like to have the opportunity to get bored. I can see the flip side. That's one of the arguments against immortality or Heaven: how long until you get bored?
Still, I wouldn't mind some boredom in my life.