Tag Archives: poetry

The Hanging Man

By the roots of my hair some god got hold of me.
I sizzled in his blue volts like a desert prophet.

The nights snapped out of sight like a lizard’s eyelid:
A world of bald white days in a shadeless socket.

A vulturous boredom pinned me in this tree.
If he were I, he would do what I did.

The poem is written by Sylvia Plath who committed suicide in 1963. She was awarded with the Pulitzer prize after her death.

For those who get the meaning of the poem, you may also be interested in the cases surrounding Ernest Hemingway’s suicide in 1961.

By the river Nilwala I sat down and wept

nilwala riverBy the river Nilwala I sat down
And wept. The young lovers were
Holding each others’ hands and laughing
and singing their songs
Like there’s tomorrow. And I,
The old, tattered soul,
Heavy with all the melancholy and sorrow,
Let the tears mix with
The incessant stream, grieving
Over the songs I couldn’t sing.

The Nilwala flowed, it didn’t know
And neither did anyone know
Of the tears mingled in the huge flow.
And why, why should anyone know
The tears of a loser the world
doesn’t need to know about.
They may well be washed into
The deep, dark ocean and forgotten
Forever.

Title inspired fromĀ By the river Piedra I sat down and wept.