Little poppies, little hell flames, Do you do no harm? You flicker. I cannot touch you. I put my hands among the flames. Nothing burns And it exhausts me to watch you Flickering like that, wrinkly and clear red, like the skin of a mouth. A mouth just bloodied. Little bloody skirts! There are fumes I cannot touch. Where are your opiates, your nauseous capsules? If I could bleed, or sleep! If my mouth could marry a hurt like that! Or your liquors seep to me, in this glass capsule, Dulling and stilling. But colorless. Colorless.
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Text Authorship:
- by Sylvia Plath (1932 - 1963), "Poppies in July", appears in Ariel, first published 1965 [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]
Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):
- by Ned Rorem (1923 - 2022), "Poppies in July", published 1974 [ soprano, clarinet, and orchestra ], from Ariel: Five Poems of Sylvia Plath, no. 2 [sung text not yet checked]
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
This text was added to the website: 2007-12-14
Line count: 15
Word count: 96