Beast, Book, Body Poem by Erica Jong

Beast, Book, Body Poem by Erica Jong

I was sick of being a woman,
sick of the pain,
the irrelevant detail of sex,
my own concavity
uselessly hungering
and emptier whenever it was filled,
and filled finally
by its own emptiness,
seeking the garden of solitude
instead of men.

The white bed
in the green garden--
I looked forward
to sleeping alone
the way some long
for a lover.

Even when you arrived,
I tried to beat you
away with my sadness,
my cynical seductions,
and my trick of
turning a slave
into a master.

And all because
you made
my fingertips ache
and my eyes cross
in passion
that did not know its own name.

Bear, beast, lover
of the book of my body,
you turned my pages
and discovered
what was there
to be written
on the other side.

And now
I am blank
for you,
a tabula rasa
ready to be printed
with letters
in an undiscovered language
by the great press
of our love.

After the Earthquaker by Erica Jong

Erica Jong / Photo by Christian Als Berlingske

AFTER THE EARTHQUAKER
by Erica Jong

After the first astounding rush,
after the weeks at the lake,
the crystal, the clouds, the water lapping the rocks,
the snow breaking under our boots like skin,
& the long mornings in bed. . .

After the tangos in the kitchen,
& our eyes fixed on each other at dinner,
as if we would eat with our lids,
as if we would swallow each other. . .

I find you still
here beside me in bed,
(while my pen scratches the pad
& your skin glows as you read)
& my whole life so mellowed & changed

that at times I cannot remember
the crimp in my heart that brought me to you,
the pain of a marriage like an old ache,
a husband like an arthritic knuckle.

Here, living with you,
love is still the only subject that matters.
I open to you like a flowering wound,
or a trough in the sea filled with dreaming fish,
or a steaming chasm of earth
split by a major quake.

You changed the topography.
Where valleys were,
there are now mountains.
Where deserts were,
there now are seas.

We rub each other,
but we do not wear away.

The sand gets finer
& our skins turn silk.

Erica Jong / After the Earthquake

After The Earthquake

By Erica Jong

After the first astounding rush,
after the weeks at the lake,
the crystal, the clouds, the water lapping the rocks,
the snow breaking under our boots like skin,
& the long mornings in bed. . .

After the tangos in the kitchen,
& our eyes fixed on each other at dinner,
as if we would eat with our lids,
as if we would swallow each other. . .

I find you still
here beside me in bed,
(while my pen scratches the pad
& your skin glows as you read)
& my whole life so mellowed & changed

that at times I cannot remember
the crimp in my heart that brought me to you,
the pain of a marriage like an old ache,
a husband like an arthritic knuckle.

Here, living with you,
love is still the only subject that matters.
I open to you like a flowering wound,
or a trough in the sea filled with dreaming fish,
or a steaming chasm of earth
split by a major quake.

You changed the topography.
Where valleys were,
there are now mountains.
Where deserts were,
there now are seas.

We rub each other,
but we do not wear away.

The sand gets finer
& our skins turn silk.

Erica Jong / Driving Me Away

 

Driving Me Away
by Erica Jong 

Driving me away
is easier
than saying
goodbye-

kissing the air,
the last syllable
of truth
being always
two lips compressed
around
emptiness-

the emptiness
you dread
yet return to
as just punishment,
just reward.

Who
loved you
so relentlessly?
Who lost you
in that howling void
between infancy
and death?

It is punctuated
by the warm bodies
of women,
who hold you for a while
then run
down that echoing corridor
doing
as they are told.

Flying At Forty by Erica Jong

 

Erica Jong in Venice

Flying At Forty

by Erica Jong

You call me
courageous, 
I who grew up
gnawing on books,
as some kids
gnaw
on bubble gum,

who married disastrously
not once
but three times,
yet have a lovely daughter
I would not undo
for all the dope
in California.

Fear was my element,
fear my contagion.
I swam in it
till I became
immune.
The plane takes off
& I laugh aloud.
Call me courageous.

I am still alive.

Erica Jong / Catching Up

 

Erica Jong

Catching Up 

by Erica Jong

We sit on a rock
to allow our souls
to catch up with us.

We have been traveling
a long time.

Behind us are forests of books
with pages green as leaves.
A blood sun stares
over the horizon.

Our souls are slow.
They walk miles behind
our long shadows.

They do not dance.
They need all their strength
merely to follow us.

Sometimes we run too fast
or trip climbing
the rotten rungs
in fame's ladder.

Our souls know
it leads nowhere.

They are not afraid
of losing us.

Erica Jong / Dear Colette

 

Colette

Dear Colette 

by Erica Jong

Dear Colette,
I want to write to you
about being a woman
for that is what you write to me.

I want to tell you how your face
enduring after thirty, forty, fifty. . .
hangs above my desk
like my own muse.

I want to tell you how your hands
reach out from your books
& seize my heart.

I want to tell you how your hair
electrifies my thoughts
like my own halo.

I want to tell you how your eyes
penetrate my fear
& make it melt.

I want to tell you
simply that I love you--
though you are "dead"
& I am still "alive."

Suicides & spinsters--
all our kind!

Even decorous Jane Austen
never marrying,
& Sappho leaping,
& Sylvia in the oven,
& Anna Wickham, Tsvetaeva, Sara Teasdale,
& pale Virginia floating like Ophelia,
& Emily alone, alone, alone. . . .

But you endure & marry,
go on writing,
lose a husband, gain a husband,
go on writing,
sing & tap dance
& you go on writing,
have a child & still
you go on writing,
love a woman, love a man
& go on writing.
You endure your writing
& your life.

Dear Colette,
I only want to thank you:

for your eyes ringed
with bluest paint like bruises,
for your hair gathering sparks
like brush fire,
for your hands which never willingly
let go,
for your years, your child, your lovers,
all your books. . . .

Dear Colette,
you hold me
to this life.

Erica Jong / The Dirty Laundry Poem

 

EL HUASO Y LA LAVANDERA,1835
Juan Mauricio Rugendas

THE DIRTY LAUNDRY POEM

By Erica Jong

This is the dirty laundry poem

because we have traveled from town to town

accumulating soiled linen & sweaty shirts

& blue-jeans caked & clotted with our juice

& teeshirts crumpled by our gloriously messy passion

& underwear made stiff by all our joy.

I have come home to wash my clothes.

They patter on the bathroom floor like rain.

The water drips away the days till you.

The dirty water speaks to me of love.

Steamy in the bubbles of our love,

I have plunged my hands into hot water

as I might plunge them

in your heart.

After years of spots & splatters,

I am finally coming clean.

I will fly to you with a suitcase of fresh laundry,

strip my clothes off, heap them on the floor,

& let you scrub my body with your love.