Outlandish as a circus, the ravaged face <br />Parades the marketplace, lurid and stricken <br />By some unutterable chagrin, <br />Maudlin from leaky eye to swollen nose. <br />Two pinlegs stagger underneath the mass. <br />Grievously purpled, mouth skewered on a groan, <br />Past keeping to the house, past all discretion —- <br />Myself, myself! —- obscene, lugubrious. <br />Better the flat leer of the idiot, <br />The stone face of the man who dosen't feel, <br />The velvet dodges of the hypocrite : <br />Better, better, and more acceptable <br />To timorous children, to the lady on the street. <br />O Oedipus. O Christ. You use me ill.<br /><br />Sylvia Plath<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-ravaged-face/
