"Daddy" Imitation

For a poetry project last year we had to imitate a published poem. We were supposed to look at rhythm, rhyme pattern (if there was one), the overall mood and tone.. I did an imitation of "Daddy" by Sylvia Plath trying to keep these things in mind (mimicking the length of the poem, number of stanzas etc.)

Mirror

Mired in doubt, mired in doubt…

I desire to clout

Soundly the image peering back

At me, so much insolence

How dare you boast, how dare you flout!                                                    

Mirror, you anger me without a shout,

Shout though I may at you.

Truth is the heaviest burden to bear,

And stark naked truth the worst,

Smashing tentative dreams.                                                                            

The streaming glass of a rainy window

Reflects pale, wan. Do you think my self-doubt

Is appeased by the mark of times ago?

Out, damned spot, I in silence shout.

Out, out!                                                                                                        

Nothing so dramatic, so tragic

As the plight of the Lady

Who cried, cried, cried.

But the yearning of scraping the stain

Off myself                                                                                                     

The need for someone to help me out,

Is in my eyes, an urgent drought.

You show truths, any sleuth,

Even Sherlock, would find nothing about.

But you know me so well.                                                                             

My face betrays the surface of my psyche,

Traitor, traitor,

But though you know me

As others see, I doubt

You know the real me.                                                                                   

Expressions, expressions,

Twist in hurricane frenzy without,

Without knowing the reasons behind them,

Your all-seeing eye is lost without

My help. You are nothing without                                                                

My face to adorn yours, my light to shine on you.

I retain that little power. Louder

I boast that you do not know my secrets

Because I can hide, I can hide.

You I can do without.                                                                                    

I see your role in legend and shout.

The maiden fair as snow, whose fate you spelled out.

Tennyson’s faerie Lady doomed.

Dna ecila uoy del yartsa.

Heartless, cruel, heartless, cruel, no doubt.                                                   

Did Perseus’s use of you

As a polished shield first sprout

The ill-fated integration of you

Into our lives? You out-thought,

Out-maneuvered us all with a pout,                                                              

A smile. How dare you, mirror,

Pretend to know all, dare to air out

The surface of my secrets meant

To be mine and only mine. Did you

Take me for a commonplace lout?                                                                 

Looking at you is to many a route

To obsession until they are sick with gout

And can stare no longer

At what they so doubt, doubt, doubt—

I run, feet on fire, from that route.                                                                 

It should hardly surprise me

That you follow no matter the route.

Do you like to reflect each pout,

To incur a shrill shout

A place so common for you                                                                          

To be found? You should be used by now

To hearing others out, out.

Oh, mirror, I start to see without

Further ado, why so many fear you.

Your image never fades out.                                                                           

Like the dog’s eyes, the toddler’s pout,

You stick, a parasite, so devout

To your cause, sowing distress,

That I cannot shake the memory.

Mirror, get out. Get out!                                                                               

Perhaps it is less the imperfections,

Of face (though that causes one to doubt

One’s worth) and more the gnawing doubt

Of below the surface. Yes, I dare that route.

Mirror, mirror, I fear you will show me inside out.