Monday, May 28, 2012

Victorian Spelunking



image borrowed from bing


Victorian Spelunking 
Even amidst fierce flames the golden lotus can
be planted.”--Wu Cheng-En
Mother, mother, dearest Aurelia,
why in hell did we take you with us
on our honeymoon to Benidorm?
The Spanish coast lost its luster
with us fearing nightly that you had
given in to your mixoscopic tendencies;
somewhere, perhaps in another flat,
she heard a piano, someone playing Bach
here at 23 Fitzroy Road, then heard Nicholas’ 
chronic coughing, cousin to pneumonia, 
her thin sweater not sufficient to ward off 
the bone-chill during that coldest February 
in London’s collective memory,
sheets of silver foil clinging to her peripherary,
her chin resting on a soft flower-designed doilie,
her lungs beginning to ache with the gas,
her stamina collapsing like chaff aflame,
her nerves raw as a fresh wound, yet
her resolve relentless as her spirit seemed
to hover above the scene, seeing her there
on her knees with her head and shoulders
thrust deeply into her narrow refuge from
Ted’s lacerating lectures, his probing quizzes,
her mind scurrying about bathed in abstraction,
consumed by black pools of energy that pulled
her down hard and fast, down to some dark domicile
beyond God’s latchstring, feeling the deaf thunder
alive with bold bolts of black lightning,
dropping straight down breasts-first toward
a faint pin-prick of light that was busy expanding
expeditiously until the light filled the dark sky
completely, and she was hurtling into it like
a hungry comet, and as she grew closer to
the inner sun she suddenly shed her sins,
cleaved off her doubts, abandoned her
mental instabilities as she became encased
in the solar eye, and embraced the cosmic tongue
in His mouth--as He presented her 
with a hot kiss
that brought orgasms 
clothed in omniscience. 
Glenn Buttkus
May 2012
Posted over at Monday Melting 19

Would you like to hear the author read this poem to you?

7 comments:

rosemary mint said...

What a gorgeous quote to open with.

Great sound in this:
"The Spanish coast lost its luster
with us fearing nightly that you had given in to your mixoscopic tendencies" (very creepy to think about regarding your mother, though)

These are the rest of my favorite sections:

"chronic coughing, cousin to pneumonia"

"sheets of silver foil clinging to her peripherary" (check your spelling)

"with her head and shoulders
thrust deeply into her narrow refuge" ... Love this description of her suicide.

"consumed by black pools of energy that pulled her down hard and fast down to some dark domicile beyond God’s latchstring" ... Powerful writing.

"and as she grew closer to
the inner sun she suddenly shed her sins"

"presented her with a hot kiss
that brought orgasms clothed in omniscience" ... Now THAT is a Sylvia kind of ending. :)

Excellent retelling of her story.

Archna Sharma said...

Breathtaking, Glenn! Hardly room to blink or glimpse. Passion and poetry, I guess that is how it should be.

The opening quote is gorgeous, just as sweet and sharp as the introduction into this world.

Anne Katherine said...

The first stanza rocks.
The whole poem had me on edge. And the final line -- "clothed in omniscience" - nice.
A sad, sad story told very well here. There is so much to like in all this!

Brian Miller said...

nice storytelling man...ugh, hard hitting as will though told very fluidly....the black pools of energy lines & god's latchstrings, great lines...and that whole last stanza is wicked...

fixed your link at dverse

Alex Dissing said...

". . . yet her resolve relentless as her spirit seemed to hover above the scene . . ." . . . I can only imagine the strength of this woman through your words, and you paint quite the picture. Descriptive storytelling, descriptive poetry . . . well done, Glenn.

hyperCRYPTICal said...

Love it - the last stanza particularly brilliant.

Anna :o]

Anonymous said...

Sylvia Plath's life was certainly marked by tragedy long before she took her own life.

When reading her, it is always worth remembering that she liked to play parts in her work; passages that seem autobiographical often are nothing like the reality of her life.

Visiting her grave in Heptonstall was moving; I think the very ordinariness of nearly everything about her grave is what touched me most.