Otto Electra, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @brianrrs37 on Twitter/X)

The “brute” as you anointed him
Became your looming enigma
Estranged by the infection
Of his leg amputation

His absence at the tender age of eight
Was the source of both your love and hate
His stern authoritarian latent mannerisms
Were the canyon of his glaring absence

In a shroud of necked boots, and a mustache
You imagined as a dash, dashing, revolting
Compelling, calling, you desired his presence
Resented his leaving, how could he do that to you

Bumblebees left the hive in your youth
The butterfly’s monarch left no honey
His bout with diabetes gave him gangrene
How thoughtless, and cruel, and mean

That seal had set in from San Francisco
And bloated his toe, some way to grow
Over the groves of weeds graves to mow
Ambiguous ghostly figure on show

You said you were through, but that wasn’t true
Ted was the sequel that irreversibly damaged you
The backs of camels broken by crowbars not straw
Servitude to his statue in Greece you never saw

I did not say “bless you”, when you wrote “achoo”
61 years since your demise, I wish I had eyes like you
I know not of Tyrol or Vienna barley, hops, or brew
I only know I want to write, as masterfully as you do

He was your ghost, and now my pen is your host
The haunting in my head, generations have gone by
Since you made your bed, and now I try to keep you alive
As if you were never dead.
(end)

To understand this poem better, read Sylvia Plath’s poems “Daddy” and “Colossus”.

Otto Plath was Sylvia Plath’s father, who had diabetes, and had to have his leg amputated because of gangrene and died from a pulmonary embolism as a complication of his leg amputation.

Some may consider her obsession with her dad’s death as Freud might have called it the “Electra Complex”, which is the opposite of the “Oedipus Complex”.

I have to admit myself, I am obsessed with Plath in much the same way she was with her father. Only in the context of her death being a mystery to me and he complexity being an enigma to me because I can’t sit down and talk to her. It is a chasm I cannot fill. I didn’t know her personally and but it is frustrating I cannot tell her what an impact she has had on me.

Otto Plath wrote a book on Bumblebee behavior “Bumblebees And Their Ways”, which was a biology book on bees.