Saturday, April 4, 2009

Incest with Big Daddy


Otto Plath

Incest with Big Daddy

“the dark ate at you”
—Ted Hughes

the darkness—ate you up
the bears—the fear of being
eaten alive—the grinding
indifferent pearly-white grizzly
teeth of big daddy—otto plath
big daddy—albatross hanging
around your—pretty little
new england neck

you tried—putting it on page
after page—the way poets do
how he came to you—in dreams
night after night—otto the ogre
your mother—in her bed next door
terrorized by—big daddy too
better you than her—she thought
married to him—all those grotesque
years—half-wife, half-prey

then it was my turn—for the ugly
male juggernaut—his thick Luger
deep inside me—while I gulped
first big daddy’s—panzer tongue
thick as a big sausage—down there
between my—innocent girlish legs
opening up just for you—big daddy
suddenly I was yours—oh! oh! oh!
mummy-daddy!!! it hurts it hurts!!!




then saying nothing—staring at
the ceiling—hearing mummy sob
in the next room—the terror of
daddy’s lips—red & raw & bloody
his bristly sharp—thin moustache
leaving me—black & blue like
some doomed—warsaw ghetto.
forever trying—to escape escape
but not being able—to run & hide!!!

but then it—it occurred to me
after big daddy died—that it all
wasn’t just—big daddy’s fault
the big secret was—my mother
aurelia francis plath—she knew
the awful truth—kept it hidden
her sleeping pills—my escape
they’d find me—dead under
the house—in the basement

rotten as—otto’s gangrene leg
putrid as—aurelia’s silence
the source—of great depression
the cause of—nervous breakdown
the ruin of—my marriage vows
haunted by—the ghost of daddy

closing my bedroom door—locking it
moving in the darkness—slipping
down the crisp—clean white sheets
enjoying his honeymoon—once again
his lips—my sovereign’s signature
my premature—secrétaire d'état
my hot little beehive—all daddy's




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