Daddy+by+Sylvia+Plath

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 **
 * by __ Sylvia Plath __ **
 * You do not do, you do not do

 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. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12px;">Ach, du.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12px;"> In the German tongue, in the Polish town <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12px;">Scraped flat by the roller <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12px;"> Of wars, wars, wars. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12px;">But the name of the town is common. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12px;"> My Polack friend

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12px;">Says there are a dozen or two. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12px;">So I never could tell where you <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12px;">Put your foot, your root, <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12px;">I never could talk to you. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12px;">The tongue stuck in my jaw.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12px;">It stuck in a barb wire snare. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12px;"> Ich, ich, ich, ich, <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12px;">I could hardly speak. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12px;"> I thought every German was you. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12px;"> And the language obscene

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12px;"> An engine, an engine <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12px;"> Chuffing me off like a Jew. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12px;">A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12px;">I began to talk like a Jew. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12px;"> I think I may well be a Jew.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12px;">The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of Vienna <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12px;"> Are not very pure or true. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12px;"> With my gipsy ancestress and my weird luck <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12px;">And my Taroc pack and my Taroc pack <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12px;"> I may be a bit of a Jew.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12px;"> I have always been scared of you, <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12px;"> With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12px;">And your neat mustache <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12px;"> And your Aryan eye, bright blue. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12px;">Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You—

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12px;"> Not God but a swastika <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12px;"> So black no sky could squeak through. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12px;">Every woman adores a Fascist, <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12px;">The boot in the face, the brute <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12px;">Brute heart of a brute like you.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12px;"> You stand at the blackboard, daddy, <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12px;"> In the picture I have of you, <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12px;">A cleft in your chin instead of your foot <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12px;"> But no less a devil for that, no not <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12px;">Any less the black man who

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12px;"> Bit my pretty red heart in two. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12px;">I was ten when they buried you. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12px;">At twenty I tried to die <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12px;">And get back, back, back to you. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12px;">I thought even the bones would do.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12px;">But they pulled me out of the sack, <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12px;">And then I knew what to do. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12px;">I made a model of you, <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12px;">A man in black with a Meinkampf look
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12px;">And they stuck me together with glue.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12px;">And a love of the rack and the screw. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12px;"> And I said I do, I do. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12px;">So daddy, I'm finally through. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12px;">The black telephone's off at the root, <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12px;">The voices just can't worm through.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12px;"> If I've killed one man, I've killed two— <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12px;">The vampire who said he was you <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12px;">And drank my blood for a year, <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12px;"> Seven years, if you want to know. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12px;">Daddy, you can lie back now.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12px;">There's a stake in your fat black heart <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12px;">And the villagers never liked you. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12px;">They are dancing and stamping on you. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12px;"> They always knew it was you. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 12px;"> Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through. ||