Poetry Friday - Soliloquy of the Solipsist

Since I was thinking about Sylvia Plath this week, I looked for some of her poems online and found this link to many of them. I wanted to post one today and eventually chose this.


Soliloquy of the Solipsist

I?
I walk alone;
The midnight street
Spins itself from under my feet;
When my eyes shut
These dreaming houses all snuff out;
Through a whim of mine
Over gables the moon's celestial onion
Hangs high.

I
Make houses shrink
And trees diminish
By going far; my look's leash
Dangles the puppet-people
Who, unaware how they dwindle,
Laugh, kiss, get drunk,
Nor guess that if I choose to blink
They die.


You can find the rest of the poem here. I enjoyed the mordant wit of the last stanza.

It's hard to keep biography out of my head as I read, and I particularly found that to be true of Child, which seems to be about trying to be a good parent while depressed, and struggling with the difference between the idealized mother in one's head and the "wringing of hands" that is actually happening.

Here's today's Poetry Friday roundup.