As It Was Written Poem by Anne Sexton

As It Was Written

Rating: 3.3


Earth, earth,
riding your merry-go-round
toward extinction,
right to the roots,
thickening the oceans like gravy,
festering in your caves,
you are becoming a latrine.
Your trees are twisted chairs.
Your flowers moan at their mirrors,
and cry for a sun that doesn't wear a mask.

Your clouds wear white,
trying to become nuns
and say novenas to the sky.
The sky is yellow with its jaundice,
and its veins spill into the rivers
where the fish kneel down
to swallow hair and goat's eyes.

All in all, I'd say,
the world is strangling.
And I, in my bed each night,
listen to my twenty shoes
converse about it.
And the moon,
under its dark hood,
falls out of the sky each night,
with its hungry red mouth
to suck at my scars.

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Yashim David George 13 March 2021

When it sucks all your scars, does it heal them? I think you're imaginative and the meanings are in layers. Thank you Sexton, I wish to know who sits on the twisted chairs.

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Varsha M 12 March 2021

A lovely journey through the valley....how wevsll feel every thing working against us.

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Deluke Muwanigwa 12 March 2021

This is poetry sublime. The metaphors are not from this earth. A poem of cosmic proportion.

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Sylvia Frances Chan 12 March 2021

A magnificent poem full of melancholy. Congratulations on being chosen as The Classic Poem Of The Day. To her family are these words. A true fascinating poem.

0 0 Reply
* Sunprincess * 14 March 2014

And the moon, under its dark hood, falls out of the sky each night,

3 1 Reply
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Anne Sexton

Anne Sexton

Newton, Massachusetts
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