The idiot bird leaps out and drunken leans
Atop the broken universal clock:
The hour is crowed in lunatic thirteens.
Out painted stages fall apart by scenes
While all the actors halt in mortal shock:
The idiot bird leaps out and drunken leans.
Streets crack through in havoc-split ravines
As the doomstruck city crumbles block by block:
The hour is crowed in lunatic thirteens.
Fractured glass flies down in smithereens;
Our lucky relics have been put in hock:
The idiot bird leaps out and drunken leans.
The monkey's wrench has blasted all machines;
We never thought to hear the holy cock:
The hour is crowed in lunatic thirteens.
Too late to ask if end was worth the means,
Too late to calculate the toppling stock:
The idiot bird leaps out and drunken leans,
The hour is crowed in lunatic thirteens.
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Comments
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The title caught my eye, and I am glad that I clicked on and read the poem. I was never drawn to Plath's poetry, until now. This one poem has strong literary merit. It follows in the style known as the villanelle (can look up what is entailed with this style on the Internet). Plath was encouraged by her professor at Smith to use the villanelle to help foster discipline with her writing technique. As to the poem itself--a wonderful read. There is an image of a crazed cuckoo clock with "an idiot bird" springing out in "lunatic thirteens". Everything is out of joint; nothing seems normal. Indeed, it's "too late" to try to ask or fix anything. The content of the poem is the title. There is no sense of salvation; "all the lucky relics have been put in hock" and the "thought to hear the holy cock" is not an option. Things have fallen apart with each crowing. What is left is a picture of utter doom; of things universal--gone. I find it interesting that the object that signals the destruction is a bird, not a person. The bird is mechanical, not natural.
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fantastic
From guest Hannah (contact)
i really like this poem because of the overall theme of it...doomsday. the end of the world when nothing really matters...like what happened during your life, everything you've done, none of it matters, because everything is being destroyed. that's what i got out of this poem, anyways. she was a great author.
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