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"Daddy" (1960)

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

"Mother" (1970)

Message to My Daughter (1973)

In this ABC Movie of the Week we begin with Miranda, 19, who finds the world "meaningless, cruel and stupid." Frustrated by her behaviour, her father gives her a box of reel-to-reel tape recordings made by her dying mother when Miranda was a baby.

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Pincher Martin (1956)

PREFACE.

This story was written in rather difficult circumstances, and subject to frequent interruption. Indeed, when the first chapters appeared in Chambers's Journal early in 1916 the narrative was barely half-finished. Sometimes I almost despaired of ever completing it, for it can perhaps be understood that writing on board a small ship actually at sea in time of war is impossible for more reasons than one.

The reader is cautioned against accepting the story as an official account of the part played by a certain section of the Navy during the war. Incidents described are true; but, for reasons which must be obvious, it has been necessary to give them fictitious colouring. It also seems desirable to add that all my characters are fictitious, and that each chapter was submitted to the censors at the Press Bureau before publication.

It should be added that a considerable amount of matter is contained in this volume which did not appear in Chambers's Journal when the story appeared in serial form.

More than ever am I deeply sensible of the very real debt which I owe to my wife, both for her help in revising and correcting the proofs, and for her many suggestions for improvements.

TAFFRAIL.

1916.

Ocean Rain (1984)

All at sea again
And now my hurricanes
Have brought down this ocean rain
To bathe me again

My ship's a sail
Can you hear its tender frame?
Screamin' from beneath the waves
Screamin' from beneath the waves

All hands on deck at dawn
Sailin' to sadder shores
Your port in my heavy storms
Harbours the blackest thoughts

I'm at sea again
And now your hurricanes
Will bring down my ocean rain
To bathe us again

My ship's a sail
Can you hear its tender frame?
Screamin' from beneath your waves
Screamin' from beneath your waves

All hands on deck at dawn
Sailin' to sadder shores
Your port in my heavy storms
Harbours the blackest thoughts

All hands on deck at dawn
Sailin' to sadder shores
Your port in my heavy storms
Harbours the blackest thoughts

All at sea again
And now our hurricanes
Have brought down this ocean rain
To bathe us again

My ship's a sail
Can you hear its tender frame?
Screamin' from beneath the waves
Screamin' from beneath your waves

Screamin' from beneath the waves
Screamin' from beneath the waves

All hands on deck at dawn
Sailin' to sadder shores
Your port in my heavy storms
Harbours the blackest thoughts