HOME | DD

Description

    You do not do, you do not do

     Any more, black shoe

     In which I have lived like a foot

     For thirty years, poor and white,

     Barely daring to breathe or Achoo.



     Daddy, I have had to kill you.

     You died before I had time——

     Marble-heavy, a bag full of God,

     Ghastly statue with one gray toe

     Big as a Frisco seal



     And a head in the freakish Atlantic

     Where it pours bean green over blue

     In the waters off beautiful Nauset.

     I used to pray to recover you.

     Ach, du.



     In the German tongue, in the Polish town

     Scraped flat by the roller

     Of wars, wars, wars.

     But the name of the town is common.

     My Polack friend



     Says there are a dozen or two.

     So I never could tell where you

     Put your foot, your root,

     I never could talk to you.

     The tongue stuck in my jaw.



     It stuck in a barb wire snare.

     Ich, ich, ich, ich,

     I could hardly speak.

     I thought every German was you.

     And the language obscene



     An engine, an engine

     Chuffing me off like a Jew.

     A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen.

     I began to talk like a Jew.

     I think I may well be a Jew.



     The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of Vienna

     Are not very pure or true.

     With my gipsy ancestress and my weird luck

     And my Taroc pack and my Taroc pack

     I may be a bit of a Jew.



     I have always been scared of you,

     With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo.

     And your neat mustache

     And your Aryan eye, bright blue.

     Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You——



     Not God but a swastika

     So black no sky could squeak through.

     Every woman adores a Fascist,

     The boot in the face, the brute

     Brute heart of a brute like you.



     You stand at the blackboard, daddy,

     In the picture I have of you,

     A cleft in your chin instead of your foot

     But no less a devil for that, no not

     Any less the black man who



     Bit my pretty red heart in two.

     I was ten when they buried you.

     At twenty I tried to die

     And get back, back, back to you.

     I thought even the bones would do.



     But they pulled me out of the sack,

     And they stuck me together with glue.

     And then I knew what to do.

     I made a model of you,

     A man in black with a Meinkampf look



     And a love of the rack and the screw.

     And I said I do, I do.

     So daddy, I’m finally through.

     The black telephone’s off at the root,

     The voices just can’t worm through.



     If I’ve killed one man, I’ve killed two——

     The vampire who said he was you

     And drank my blood for a year,

     Seven years, if you want to know.

     Daddy, you can lie back now.



     There’s a stake in your fat black heart

     And the villagers never liked you.

     They are dancing and stamping on you.

     They always knew it was you.
     Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I’m through.

   ~ Sylvia Plath

''Devil's Trill Sonata'' ~ www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7rxl5…

Description

    You do not do, you do not do

     Any more, black shoe

     In which I have lived like a foot

     For thirty years, poor and white,

     Barely daring to breathe or Achoo.



     Daddy, I have had to kill you.

     You died before I had time——

     Marble-heavy, a bag full of God,

     Ghastly statue with one gray toe

     Big as a Frisco seal



     And a head in the freakish Atlantic

     Where it pours bean green over blue

     In the waters off beautiful Nauset.

     I used to pray to recover you.

     Ach, du.



     In the German tongue, in the Polish town

     Scraped flat by the roller

     Of wars, wars, wars.

     But the name of the town is common.

     My Polack friend



     Says there are a dozen or two.

     So I never could tell where you

     Put your foot, your root,

     I never could talk to you.

     The tongue stuck in my jaw.



     It stuck in a barb wire snare.

     Ich, ich, ich, ich,

     I could hardly speak.

     I thought every German was you.

     And the language obscene



     An engine, an engine

     Chuffing me off like a Jew.

     A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen.

     I began to talk like a Jew.

     I think I may well be a Jew.



     The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of Vienna

     Are not very pure or true.

     With my gipsy ancestress and my weird luck

     And my Taroc pack and my Taroc pack

     I may be a bit of a Jew.



     I have always been scared of you,

     With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo.

     And your neat mustache

     And your Aryan eye, bright blue.

     Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You——



     Not God but a swastika

     So black no sky could squeak through.

     Every woman adores a Fascist,

     The boot in the face, the brute

     Brute heart of a brute like you.



     You stand at the blackboard, daddy,

     In the picture I have of you,

     A cleft in your chin instead of your foot

     But no less a devil for that, no not

     Any less the black man who



     Bit my pretty red heart in two.

     I was ten when they buried you.

     At twenty I tried to die

     And get back, back, back to you.

     I thought even the bones would do.



     But they pulled me out of the sack,

     And they stuck me together with glue.

     And then I knew what to do.

     I made a model of you,

     A man in black with a Meinkampf look



     And a love of the rack and the screw.

     And I said I do, I do.

     So daddy, I’m finally through.

     The black telephone’s off at the root,

     The voices just can’t worm through.



     If I’ve killed one man, I’ve killed two——

     The vampire who said he was you

     And drank my blood for a year,

     Seven years, if you want to know.

     Daddy, you can lie back now.



     There’s a stake in your fat black heart

     And the villagers never liked you.

     They are dancing and stamping on you.

     They always knew it was you.
     Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I’m through.

   ~ Sylvia Plath

''Devil's Trill Sonata'' ~ www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7rxl5…