Ariel’s Revenge



Ariel’s Revenge
—for Robin Morgan

“How quickly these
six-inch masterpieces
betray their creators”
—Joyce Carol Oates,
The Death Throes of
Romanticism: The
Poetry of Sylvia Plath

What if Sylvia Plath—killed Ted Hughes?
Replaying—that old Shakespearian rag
“I should have—murdered this guy
This skanky guy—who murdered me”
What dramatic boundaries—would have
Been crossed then—desacralizing her
Gigolo husband—his running off with
Seductive Assia Wevill—getting rid of
Both Big Daddy—and her worthless
No-good husband—violent womanizer
Glamorized—Mytholmroyd Meathead!

Talk about—fame and fortune displaced
So much for convenient—Suicide Cults
Kiss off pompous—Poet Laureate pig-shit
A whole new world—opening up for the
London literary critics—the Biographers
A new slant for Alvarez’s—Savage God
New versions of—Bitter Fame and
Rough Magic—The Silent Woman
New books—The Haunting of Hughes
Ariel resurrected—from the Dead
Sylvia Plath—surviving instead!!!


Tragedy isn’t—a man
However—well-endowed
Dragging his maleness—around
In a circle endlessly—admiring
It with Narcissistic—Scrupulosity
The stale boring—inertia of his
Male Tool—the tragedy of its
Mysterious Enlargements—so
Experienced in—Private Agonies
Dazzling Colossus—making sure
All of us experience—Six Inches!!!

Yawn—Death of Male Romanticism
What could be more—startling and
Shocking—than a whole new Era
Mytholmroyd—Masculinist Martyrdom?
The coy pathological—offended male
Audacious hubris—what a Crime
Performed in the name—of Feminist
Autobiographical Glory—the hollow
Rhetorical—muy macho Apocalypse
Of the male—Poetry Establishment
Weeping at its—masturbatory best

There are the faces—the faces of men
The faces of nations—governments
Universities and—professional elites
It’s these men—these faceless men
Now in the death throes—of Romanticism
Poor Ted Hughes—his dead Six Inches
How the gods on Olympus—howl and grieve
The Poet Laureate’s—cold stiff Phallus!!!
How frightening—to the male imagination
The “Father” and “Son”—Oh Lordy!!!
Not so transcendent—after all

These Six Inches—multiplied endlessly
By all the books—the Romantic tradition
The perpetually renewed—and self-renewing
Muy Macho—Masculinist World View
Not convincing—Sylvia Plath one little bit
Nor did it impress—Gertrude Stein either
The pronouncements—of Patriarchal Poetry
Practical-minded—combative and butchy
Pulsating, breathing—puffed-up, proud
Only too ready—to point the finger of guilt
And taint—blaming Plath for everything

Plath’s lifestyle—plus her anti-male Ariel
Entered the scene—fifty years ago
Accelerating the male hysteria—by killing
Off Ted Hughes—his ogling Eyeball
Stuck in the key-hole—to Plath’s bedroom
The same with Miss Eliot’s—Waste Land
Dizzy Yeats’ Vision—Graves’ Pale Goddess
Dismissing them all—with her simple question:
“What feminist poet—could flourish in such a
Crummy Big Daddy—dumpy old Rat Hole as
Ted Hughes’—House of Six Inches?”

So much for Heathcliff—shot on the moors
Take Wuthering Heights—and shove it
Sylvia Plath—did in her no-good lover
She shot him dead—deader than a doornail
How the newspaper headlines—squealed
Now Sylvia was—the Number One Killer
So much for Olwyn—and the Estate
The Hughes Nuthouse—no more copyrights
Brute process—of an awful Murder Trial
Oh how all the—Porky Pig literary critics
Lamented the late great—Six Inches!!!

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