For Sylvia Plath

Addiction to neon –
Sumptuous marriage. Playful.
Montage of ill health.

Now what does that all mean.
Let us take the word ‘neon’.
It can mean stripes of light.
Hallucinogenic Technicolor.

‘Sumptuous’. Does that mean
That we are sitting down to a feast.
Us gulls to fill our bellies?
Fatten them up with tiny golden

Arrows of haiku’d up words
And sumptuousness. And now
We come to marriage and playful.
Let us go skinny-dipping in them.

Let us not let ill health
Keep us back. Our bones are
Ancient. Everything lovely
About it. Out there are our

Doppelgangers reminding us
Nothing is by accident. They
Tell us to sit down at our desk
Writer, poet and to make a living

Out of it. In time we will
All fade away like squiggles
Of moonlight and my brother’s
Laughter is explicit. It fans

Itself into waves –
I have been here before. A-fri-ca!
I still burn for him.

Yearn for him like a plague
Yearns for famine. Those lean years.
He feels nothing for me.
I am a useless zero. An empty cup.

So I have haiku’d life away.
Worn this chip on my shoulder
I am a distillate. Mere fog.
Now I play at writing maps.

Speak Your Mind

*

Notify me of followup comments via e-mail. You can also subscribe without commenting.