Daddy-Sylvia Plath

[00:00:22]Daddy [00:03:07]You do not do, you do not do [00:05:17]Any more, black shoe [00:07:08]In which I have lived like a foot [00:08:44]For thirty years, poor and white, [00:12:07]Barely daring to breathe or Achoo. [00:15:19]Daddy, I have had to kill you. [00:18:10]You died before I had time-- [00:20:19]Marble-heavy, a bag full of God, [00:24:06]Ghastly statue with one gray toe [00:26:23]Big as a Frisco seal [00:29:03]And a head in the freakish [00:30:06]Atlantic Where it pours bean green over blue [00:34:06]In the waters off beautiful Nauset. [00:37:16]I used to pray to recover you. [00:39:23]Ach, du. [00:41:19]In the German tongue, in the Polish town [00:44:07]Scraped flat by the roller [00:46:13]Of wars, wars, wars. [00:50:00]But the name of the town is common. [00:52:07]My Polack friend [00:53:21]Says there are a dozen or two. [00:56:23]So I never could tell where you [00:58:14]Put your foot, your root, [01:00:15]I never could talk to you. [01:02:20]The tongue stuck in my jaw. [01:05:13]It stuck in a barb wire snare. [01:08:14]Ich, ich, ich, ich, [01:11:14]I could hardly speak. [01:13:08]I thought every German was you. [01:15:18]And the language obscene [01:17:07]An engine, an engine [01:19:13]Chuffing me off like a Jew. [01:22:00]A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen. [01:25:23]I began to talk like a Jew. [01:28:03]I think I may well be a Jew. [01:30:17]The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of Vienna [01:33:23]Are not very pure or true. [01:36:20]With my gipsy ancestress and my weird luck [01:40:22]And my Taroc pack and my Taroc pack [01:44:12]I may be a bit of a Jew. [01:47:03]I have always been scared of you, [01:49:09]With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo. [01:52:22]And your neat mustache [01:53:04]And your Aryan eye, bright blue. [01:56:07]Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You-- [01:59:17]Not God but a swastika [02:02:04]So black no sky could squeak through. [02:06:08]Every woman adores a Fascist, [02:08:17]The boot in the face, the brute [02:10:22]Brute heart of a brute like you. [02:14:07]You stand at the blackboard, daddy, [02:16:11]In the picture I have of you, [02:18:05]A cleft in your chin instead of your foot [02:21:09]But no less a devil for that, no not [02:23:23]Any less the black man who [02:25:21]Bit my pretty red heart in two. [02:29:14]I was ten when they buried you. [02:32:00]At twenty I tried to die [02:34:06]And get back, back, back to you. [02:37:14]I thought even the bones would do. [02:40:06]But they pulled me out of the sack, [02:42:02]And they stuck me together with glue. [02:44:22]And then I knew what to do. [02:47:12]I made a model of you, [02:49:00]A man in black with a Meinkampf look [02:51:17]And a love of the rack and the screw. [02:53:13]And I said I do, I do. [02:57:04]So daddy, I'm finally through. [02:59:15]The black telephone's off at the root, [03:01:20]The voices just can't worm through. [03:05:14]If I've killed one man, I've killed two-- [03:09:02]The vampire who said he was you [03:11:10]And drank my blood for a year, [03:12:19]Seven years, if you want to know. [03:16:15]Daddy, you can lie back now. [03:19:01]There's a stake in your fat black heart [03:22:10]And the villagers never liked you. [03:25:01]They are dancing and stamping on you. [03:27:20]They always knew it was you. [03:30:07]Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through.