Forever, I suppose

[hester_prynne]

I lost it
when she asked me,
why do you breathe that way?

I mean,
how big
do I have to be for her?

All these years,
the theme
never changes.

Hammer hammer hammer,
Criticize, criticize,
criticize.

Cut your hair,
stand up straight,
NO WONDER HE LEFT YOU FOR HER!!

Sigh.
(oops I'm breathing
that way again!)

Not my fault
that I look like dad,
mom.

Siblings tell me
have
compassion,

be kind,
after all,
she is 83.

I plead with them,
but how long must I wait
to trash her?

Their silent answer
always replies,
forever, I suppose.

[Nazz]

I wonder,
what exactly does she have against breathing?
Can't help but wonder..

[constantine]

how long must i wait to trash her!? parents are a trip. you have struck a perennial chord in a caustic, but amusing, way. look out for the hammer!!

[mtmynd]

powerful words, Hes', and they make me a wee bit uncomfortable only because I can relate to them to a certain degree. But waiting to "trash" her could bring a great deal of needless suffering to you. Do you have anything better to do in the meantime? Of course you do. Do it and let her go... your emotions need the relief and the release of this pent up, destructive energy. You'll both be better for it.

[Doreen Peri]

SIGH.....
I breathe this way because of your
incessant hammer hammer hammer
criticizing corrections!

SIGH.....
STOP it already!

I'm a grown adult.
If I want to slouch, I'll slouch.
If I want my hair long, my hair will be long.
And you damn well better believe
I'm going to be ME so do me and yourself
a favor and take a breather from it!

SIGH.....

(do not "trash" her, never "trash" her,
but why wait one more moment without
speaking your peace?)

[Lightning Rod]

This poem is sort of like inside-out Plath
or a further exploration of the Electra Complex
very strong
I liked it (or hated it, whichever you prefer)

[hester_prynne]

Thank you all for your most interesting responses to this thing.
Please note, that I was feeling rather "caustic and humorous" when I wrote this...as my mother really did ask me this question last weekend.
After many years of her directing this kind of energy towards me, (to the consternation and even bewilderment of the rest of the family,) I have come to accept it and love my mom, regardless of her uncomfortableness and projected angers, towards me.
There are times however, when her beratings are hard to bear.
The good news is that they don't make me feel bad anymore about myself.
I see it more as her stuff. (Thanks to that therapy I had....for years).
Hell, I can even write about it now!
So Cec, don't worry, I am totally with you on purging the effects of her projections. I don't want the energy it has given me in the past anymore.
Done with it.
And although I find Electra to be very interesting, I am Hester, her hopefully more evolved sister.
Thanks you all for reading. Not a fun poem, but certainly cathartic and your responses are again, wonderful, I thank you for that too.....
H

[Arcadia]

my mother and I were a bit tired of fighting when a was near 25 and she was near 55. Then, her again-illness and my crazyness had some fight-peaks five years later, but we reached some kind of understanding and peace before she died. Though I feel it really would have been fun to meet ourselves at the age of 55 and 83!!!!

I enjoyed it, hester!!!! thanks for sharing it with us!!!!!!

[Barry]

Daddy
by: Sylvia Plath

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.



From "Ariel", 1966

I'll never forget this.
How she changed my life.
And now, you too.

Peace,
Barry
PS: On the Learning Channel I heard a tape of her reading this in, 1985? 86?, and I never forgot. It...she...changed my life forever...I suppose.