An Elephant; a Ponderous House: Box Score by Sylvia Plath

Last August in our GBH Roundtable, cuppycup unwittingly anointed Sylvia Plath the official muse of our 2014 season when he speculated we would go 6-6. His dismal pessimism has now spread after a quick start to the year. Let's channel Sylvia and see what she'd have to say about today's game in Tuscaloosa.

The telegram says you have gone away And left our bankrupt circus on its town; There is nothing more for me to say. The maestro gives the singing birds their pay And they buy tickets for the tropic zone; The telegram says you have gone away.

O ransack the four winds and find another man who can mangle the grin of kings: the sting of bees took away my father who scorned the tick of the falling weather.

Arena dust rusted by four bulls' blood to a dull redness, The afternoon at a bad end under the crowd's truculence, The ritual death each time botched among dropped capes, ill-judged stabs, The strongest will seemed a will towards ceremony. Obese, dark- Faced in his rich yellows, tassels, pompons, braid, the picador

How far is it? There is mud on my feet, Thick, red and slipping. It is Adam's side, This earth I rise from, and I in agony. I cannot undo myself, and the train is steaming. Steaming and breathing, its teeth Ready to roll, like a devil's. There is a minute at the end of it A minute, a dewdrop. How far is it? It is so small The place I am getting to, why are there these obstacles ----

This red wall winces continually : A red fist, opening and closing, Two gray, papery bags--- This is what I am made of , this and a terror Of being wheeled off under crosses and a rain of pietas.

Again we are deluded and infer that somehow we are younger than we were.

In a pit of rock The sea sucks obsessively, One hollow the whole sea's pivot.

A monster of wood and rusty teeth. Fire smelted his eyes to lumps Of pale blue vitreous stuff, opaque As resin drops oozed from pine bark.

Puppets, loosed from the strings of the puppetmaster Wear masks of horn to bed. This is not death, it is something safer. The wingy myths won't tug at us anymore: