Autobiographical
The lover in these poems
is me;
the doctor,
Love.
He appears
as husband, lover
analyst & muse,
as father, son
& maybe even God
& surely death.
All this is true.
The man you turn to
in the dark
is many men.
This is an open secret
women share
& yet agree to hide
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poem by Erica Jong
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Regret for Mimi Bailin
Regret is the young girl who sits in the snow
& stares at her hands.
They are bluer than shadows in snow.
They are bloodless as fear.
Her fingernail moons are white.
She wants to crawl into the palm
of her own hand.
She wants extra fingers to cover
the shame of her eyes.
She wants to follow her lifeline where it leads
but it plunges deeper
than the Grand Canyon.
She stands on the edge
still hoping
she can fly.
poem by Erica Jong
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The Woman of It
Your slit so like mine:
the woman of it,
the warm womanwide of thigh,
& the comfort of it-
knowing your nipples like mine,
& the likeness of it,
watching the mirror make love,
& the lovematch;
the mirror of you
in me.
I have creamed my hands
in the cave;
I have known my mother.
Years to get past
the barrier reefs of words.
We were natural together
as two little girls in the bath.
We hoped to be women someday,
we hoped to grow up.
poem by Erica Jong
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Driving Me Away
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
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poem by Erica Jong
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Near the Black Forest
Living in a house
near the Black Forest,
without any clocks,
she's begun
to listen to the walls.
Her neighbors have clocks,
not one
but twenty clocks apiece.
Sometimes
a claque of clocks
applauds
the passing of each day.
Listen to the walls
& wind your watch.
Poor love, poor love,
have they caught you
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poem by Erica Jong
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The Poet Fears Failure
The poet fears failure
& so she says
"Hold on pen--
what if the critics
hate me?"
& with that question
she blots out more lines
than any critic could.
The critic is only doing his job:
keeping the poet lonely.
He barks
like a dog at the door
when the master comes home.
It's in his doggy nature.
If he didn't know the poet
for the boss,
he wouldn't bark so loud.
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poem by Erica Jong
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Catching Up
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.
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poem by Erica Jong
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Self-Portrait
She was not a slender woman,
but her skin was milk
mixed in with strawberry jam
& between her legs the word purple was born
& her hair was the color of wheat & yellow butter.
Her eyes were dark as the North Atlantic sea.
She learned the untranslatable words of dawn.
She studied her own fear & wrote its verses.
She used the hole in her heart to play wind-music.
She built her book-houses over her empty cellar.
She nursed on the muse at first,
then became her own mother.
poem by Erica Jong
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The Widower
She left him in death's egg,
the bone sack & the gunny sack,
the bag of down & feathers-all black . . .
Somehow he couldn't get back.
It was night,
a night of shark-faced jets
winking brighter than blue stars,
a night of poisoned cities
mushrooming beneath the eyes of jets,
a night of missile silos
sulking in the desert,
a night of babies howling in the alleys,
a night of cats.
She left a death so huge
his life got lost in it.
She left a bloodstained egg
he had to hatch.
poem by Erica Jong
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Zen & the Art of Poetry
Letting the mind go,
letting the pen, the breath,
the movement of images in & out
of the mouth
go calm, go rhythmic
as the rise & fall of waves,
as one sits in the lotus position
over the world,
holding the pen so lightly
that it scarcely stains the page,
holding the breath
in the glowing cage of the ribs,
until the heart
is only a living lantern
fueled by breath,
& the pen writes
what the heart wills
& the whole world goes out,
goes black,
but for the hard, clear stars
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poem by Erica Jong
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