The Sylvia Plath Forum

Poems inspired by Sylvia Plath


FOX BURROW

inspired by reading Ted Hughes's "Epiphany" in Birthday Letters

He, still
Is,
still the fox.
ruddy Thought Fox with his
epiphany in some
london station tube.
i don't know much about him;
who does
except through her

bitter
sweetness made me cry
when i read his words.
maybe he and
their flesh
Lent
us those years before
her Cave-in--
supernova of her reddened
flight---
bright,
lost
and crashing Moon,
smashed,
in a Devon field
or plain,
now
shining out the broken
man-eyes of the Fox
who heard it
Fall
and wept
he could not catch
the light

Elizabeth Leverty

Elizabeth Leverty
San Francisco, Calif., US
November 30, 1998


 

ASHES

The dreamer in her loved you--

fallen

in

a throbbing
foetus
fish---
trailing orange, grease and death

and in you fell--
the dizzy , dreaming fox-man.

these two negatives cause a positive
to shock the dreamers so awake---
Alive!

now did you see
the Devon man
so infinitely awake, so perfectly alive,
stare in the cave or car,
--as dreaming shadows dragged their shadows--

like a fish nods back at brittle Moon,
then thrusts, and
flows
into the glowing sea:
a shadow, a dull mirror
in his eye?

old thoughts soak off: he
gulps this Vision
(once fed on spuds and honey)
but now
drunk
on marrow-salt.

alas my lady, if i have made infinite imperfect various :

but i am in the marrow
and cannot sleep.

I wrote "Ashes," after "The Pan" and "Dreamers"

Elizabeth Leverty
San Francisco, Calif., US
Thursday, October 29, 1998


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