The Prophet

His hair was flat with grease, His clothes smelled of sweat, earth, motor oil, and perhaps a trace of urine. People avoided or ignored the man. In his hands he clutched doomsday, he held Revelations. The man gave all his strength into showing what was to come. He was used to being tired and kicked, ssoldiers had carried him out of the area around the Minutemen  a month ago. Two nights ago he had to leave the parking lot of St. Mary’s as headlights near where he slept for the night. But today, today he slept in a bed. Well, a pad really. He had found a small room in a field. He was able to get in easily. People buy good locks, but no one ever spends money on hinges. They get the cheap hinges. With no windows it was hard to tell when it was morning, the man left the room in the middle of the morning. He set out into town, he had a message to send. Out of the corner of his eye he was four men on horseback in a distant field. Realizing the man was a stranger, the horsemen rode near. The man ran, vindicated at last, desperate to share the news. 

A matter of life and death

Both Plath and Sexton presented an interesting level of duality in their work. They seemed to curse their own lives and praise that of their children. While the notion of praising one’s child is common, the extent to which they discussed their own planned deaths was not. People do not really like to think about dying. Most see it as an end, Plath and Sexton seemed to view it as an escape. This idea opposes the common notion of death. Death is normally seen as confining. Once one dies, he cannot come or leave, he is trapped within a box six feet underground, it is not an escape but rather a trap.