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Assia

Submitted by BlueDemon77 on Mon, 2012-09-10 12:09

did she tremble as the stag horns burst through
icy, untouchable
pointing judgments of
the poet as housemaid
the laureate academic
collecting a pulitzer for his first dead wife's work
His best friend and true wife stood seven years
before ground sleeping pills and a gas oven
ate the air, the daughter too.....mouth open lips purple blue
did you get him back? He married a year later
Assia the Lilith of this tale.

I wonder

if in afterlife are you in tornado caterwaul with Sylvia

or do you work upon the stag with the icy horns in flea and ant bites

fog swirling with fingernails to pay back the torture upon his hell bound flesh

Style / type: 
Free verse
Review Request (Intensity): 
I want the raw truth, feel free to knock me on my back
Review Request (Direction): 
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Editing stage: 
Editing - rough draft
Workshop: 
Mindful Memorable Freeform: The Challenge

Comments

BlueDemon77

Wed, 2012-09-12 14:48

BlueDemon77's picture

This is a true story of Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath, and Assia Weville. Strangely little known considering the status of at least two of the three poets. Assia was pregnant with Hughes' child at the time of Plath's suicide then seven years later Assia crushed up sleeping pills into liquid and dragged herself and her daughter into an oven just as Plath had. Tragic but true story of two of the notable poets of our time.

Ron

Blue Demon77

"What I want is to be what I was before the knife,
before the brooch pin, before the salve, fixed me in this parenthesis:
Horses fluent in the wind. A place, a time gone out of mind."

The Eye Mote-Sylvia Plath

author comment

judyanne

Thu, 2012-09-13 08:20

judyanne's picture
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Ted Hughes may have been a great poet, but he was a litle man
- i just love your
'fog swirling with fingernails to pay back the torture upon his hell bound flesh'

but i have always thought the tragedy here was with Shura's story, and you have inspired me to answer your poem with this

a child conceived in a
doom-laden relationship
four summers of
confusion
a father’s denial
and a mother’s depression

a raiment
clinging round Assia's neck
between them, on the mattress
the empty glass of
sleeping draught

the death of Shura
dismissed as a footnote

love judy
xxx

'Each for the joy of the working, and each, in his separate star,
shall draw the Thing as he sees It, for the God of Things as They are.'
(Rudyard Kipling)

BlueDemon77

Thu, 2012-09-13 11:01

BlueDemon77's picture

You're right. I remember times I'd hear people talk about Assia as "his other wife" and think what a shame that she had been reduced to that small part of what she was. Now I have gone and made a more dire mistake with Shura. She deserves a poem of her own. She deserved non-narcissistic parents and a good long life.

Ron

Blue Demon77

"What I want is to be what I was before the knife,
before the brooch pin, before the salve, fixed me in this parenthesis:
Horses fluent in the wind. A place, a time gone out of mind."

The Eye Mote-Sylvia Plath

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