She is the gypsy Whose young have rooted In the very flesh of her scalp. Her eyes are drill-holes where Your senses spin, and you are stone Even as you stand before her. She opens her lips to speak, And have you believe. She has more tongues to deceive Than you can deafen your ears to. If you could look away, the voices From the heads of her vipers Would be hard to argue. If you could look away, The pedestals of your feet might move. If you could look away, The song from the cathedral of her mouth Would fall to the floor like a lie.
From Waxworks by Frieda Hughes. Copyright © 2003 by Frieda Hughes. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins. All rights reserved.
*Note: Frieda is the daughter of Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath My Mother
They are killing her again.
She said she did it
One year in every ten,
But they do it annually, or weekly,
Some even do it daily,
Carrying her death around in their heads
And practising it. She saves them
The trouble of their own;
They can die through her
Without ever making
The decision. My buried mother
Is up-dug for repeat performances.
Now they want to make a film
For anyone lacking the ability
To imagine the body, head in oven,
Orphaning children. Then
It can be rewound
So they can watch her die
Right from the beginning again.
The peanut eaters, entertained
At my mother’s death, will go home,
Each carrying their memory of her,
Lifeless – a souvenir.
Maybe they’ll buy the video.
Watching someone on TV
Means all they have to do
Is press ‘pause’
If they want to boil a kettle,
While my mother holds her breath on screen
To finish dying after tea.
The filmmakers have collected
The body parts,
They want me to see.
They require dressings to cover the joins
And disguise the prosthetics
In their remake of my mother.
They want to use her poetry
As stitching and sutures
To give it credibility.
They think I should love it –
Having her back again, they think
I should give them my mother’s words
To fill the mouth of their monster,
Their Sylvia Suicide Doll,
Who will walk and talk
And die at will,
And die, and die
And forever be dying.
Published in The Stonepicker and The Book of Mirrors
| Two, of course there are two. It seems perfectly natural now --- The one who never looks up, whose eyes are lidded And balled? like Blake's. Who exhibits The birthmarks that are his trademark --- The scald scar of water, The nude Verdigris of the condor. I am red meat. His beak Claps sidewise: I am not his yet. He tells me how badly I photograph. He tells me how sweet The babies look in their hospital Icebox, a simple Frill at the neck Then the flutings of their Ionian Death-gowns. Then two little feet. He does not smile or smoke. The other does that His hair long and plausive Bastard Masturbating a glitter He wants to be loved. I do not stir. The frost makes a flower, The dew makes a star, The dead bell, The dead bell. Somebody's done for. |
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 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 in foot ------ The big strip tease. Gentleman , 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 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 on 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. (1962)