Caged, locked by fear,
leaves me isolated, insulated,
insincere.
Regret slices my soul
into chunks of sorrow,
knowing I’m my own warden.
A plea to Goddess Kali
for blackness; coldness;
release.
Blissfully,
sans teardrops of rage,
effects cascade, decisions fade.
In my last, I’m cast free.
I’ve won; I’ve lost.
I’ve made my escape.
David Siegel Bernstein lives within the shadow of Philadelphia in Elkins Park, PA. To support his writing addiction and excessively extravagant lifestyle, he consults as a forensic statistician. His poetry has been published in numerous literary and genre magazines, including Paper Crow, MindFlights, Aphelion, Wanderings, Down in the Dirt, Liquid Ohio, Fear and Trembling, Revealing All your Dirty Little Secrets, and we the Poets. His fiction has appeared has been published in numerous print, podcast, and online magazines. He also serves on the board of directors for the Philadelphia Writers’ Conference and is co-chair of the Words-in-Progress writers group.
Posted on February 1, 2010 in Literary
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14 Responses to “THE EMANCIPATION OF SYLVIA PLATH • by David Siegel Bernstein”
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February 1st, 2010 at 2:45 am
Impressive creds.
Not an impressive poem.
February 1st, 2010 at 3:17 am
Ooo… Treading on tricky ground, here. Sylvia Plath is a personal heroine of mine…
February 1st, 2010 at 7:20 am
A little too concerned with the gothic without ever getting to the meat of the problem.
February 1st, 2010 at 10:46 am
I actually am impressed by this poem, although, except for its earnest soul searching I don’t know the reason why. I also don’t understand all of it. I’m not impressed by hermetics and I don’t like SP’s Daddy poem which I read this morning through Wikipedia and never liked SP’s novel THE BELL JAR which I read long ago and now don’t even remember. But something absorbs me in this poem. Why? I don’t know.
February 1st, 2010 at 11:00 am
I think it does a fine job of capturing the subject’s thoughts & emotions — especially locked by fear, isolated, her own warden. And then cast free — having both won & lost — upon making her own escape.
February 1st, 2010 at 1:28 pm
Loved it !
Profound !
Moving !
Well done!
5 *****
February 1st, 2010 at 6:29 pm
With a title like that, I expected great things. I expected “green” or some reference to a color other than black-ness. Forgive me for my youthful infatuation with Sylvia and her despair. This just strikes me as way too analytical and somehow, someway, slightly insulting, in that I never really thought she found release through death. Still, perhaps it is my own fault for staggering and stumbling too near to poets who place themselves
. . . at one with the drive
Into the red
Eye, the cauldron of morning
February 1st, 2010 at 10:11 pm
vondrakker, perhaps you’d like to share what you found profound and moving about this poem.
*scratching head*
February 1st, 2010 at 10:48 pm
Goddess Kali does not represent blackness, coldness. The concept of Kali is far more complex and much more than the mundane “Goddess.”
February 2nd, 2010 at 6:13 am
Magdalen – I am interested in the line in your comment (a quote?)
“at one with the drive into the red
“Eye, the cauldron of morning”
I would like to know what that beautiful line is from because I would like to read it.
I Would be very grateful if you could list it here.
PSC – Suicide, although it might be advisable in situations like torture until death, is never a winner.
Rumjhum is doubless right about Kali. I had that understanding too, but Rumjhum no doubt knows much more about Kali than I. But further – there are no mundane goddesses.
February 2nd, 2010 at 11:17 am
Roberta, It is a quote from the final line of Ms. Plath’s brilliant poem, Ariel.
February 2nd, 2010 at 3:02 pm
I looked for SP’s poem on the internet and found this as its ending At Poem Hunter.com:
And I
Am the arrow,
The dew that flies,
Suicidal, at one with the drive
Into the red
Eye, the cauldron of morning.
P.S.
sylvia and the rest of the girls who know you
send their best regards. Still whole to find the holes?
and stiff and tickling?
musta ka na conejo? good, you’re still with us.
WELCOME TO THE SHOW.
February 28th, 2010 at 1:16 am
[...] Comes” by Linda Simoni-Wastila, “Lost & Found” by Stacy Post, and “The Emancipation of Sylvia Plath” by David Siegel [...]
March 2nd, 2010 at 9:19 am
Fantastic imagery and use of words with hard consonants to portray the emotion of the poem. I am a huge fan of this writers work. I hope to read more submissions from him soon.