Knives
The women he has had are all faces
without eyes.
He has entered them blind
as a cut worm.
He has swum their oceans
like a wounded fish
looking for home.
At nights when he can't sleep,
he dreams of weaving
backward up that river
where the banks
are fringed with mouths,
& weedy hair
grows amid the dark crusts
of ancient blood.
Tonight he is afraid & lonely
in a city of meat & knives.
I would go under his knife
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poem by Erica Jong
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On the Avenue
Male?
Female?
God doesn't care
about sex
& the long tree-shaded avenue
toward death.
God says
the worm is as beautiful
as the apple it eats
& the apple as lovely
as the thick trunk
of the tree,
& the trunk of the tree
no more beautiful
than the air
surrounding it.
God doesn't care
about the battle
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poem by Erica Jong
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For Molly
You-the purest pleasure
of my life,
the split pit
that proves
the ripeness of the fruit,
the unbroken center
of my broken hopes-
O little one,
making you
has centered my lopsided life
so that if I know
a happiness
that reason never taught,
it is because of your small
unreasonably wrigglish
limbs.
Daughter, little bean,
sprout, sproutlet, smallest
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poem by Erica Jong
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Her Broom, Or The Ride Of The Witch
My broom
with its tufts of roses
beckoning at the black,
with its crown of thistles,
prickling the sky,
with its carved crescents
winking silverly
at Diana,
with its thick brush
of peacock feathers
sweeping the night,
with its triangle
of glinting fur.
I ride
over the roofs
of doom.
I ride
while he thinks me safe
in our bed.
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poem by Erica Jong
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Tachycardia
In the chest is caged bat
who seeks escape
through the mouth.
He flaps his wings
& the molars shiver.
He flaps his wings
& the thyroid bulges
like a snake
that has swallowed
a mouse.
He flaps his wings
uttering shrill cries
heard only by the ears
of the teeth.
He wants to soar
into the great world.
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poem by Erica Jong
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Gazing Out, Gazing In
Because I am here
anchoring you
to the passionate darkness,
you gaze out the window
at the light.
My love is the thing
that frees you
to follow your eyes,
as your love,
a sword made of moonlight
and blood,
and smelling of sex
and salt marshes,
frees me to gaze
with a calm inward
eye.
In all your frenzied searching
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poem by Erica Jong
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Sunday Afternoons
I sit at home
at my desk alone
as I used to do
on many sunday afternoons
when you came back to me,
your arms ached for me,
and your arms would close me in
though they smelled of other women.
I think of you
on Sunday afternoons.
Your sweet head would bow,
like a child somehow,
down to me -
and your hair and your eyes were wild.
We would embrace on the floor-
You see my back´s still sore.
You knew how easily I bruised,
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Ordinary Miracles
Spring, rainbows,
ordinary miracles
about which
nothing new can be said.
The stars on a clear night
of a New England winter;
the soft air of the islands
along the old
Spanish Main;
pirate gold shining
in the palm;
the odor of roses
to the lover's nose. . .
There is no more poetry
to be written
of these things.
The rainbow's sudden revelation--
behold!
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I Sleep With
I sleep with double pillows since you're gone.
Is one of them for you-or is it you?
My bed is heaped with books of poetry.
I fall asleep on yellow legal pads.
Oh the orgies in stationery stores!
The love of printer's ink & think new pads!
A poet has to fall in love to write.
Her bed is heaped with papers, or with men.
I keep your pillow pressed down with my books.
They leave an indentation like your head.
If I can't have you here, I'll take cold type-
& words: the warmest things there are-
but you.
poem by Erica Jong
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Insomnia & Poetry
Sweet muse
with bitter milk,
I have lain
between your breasts,
put my ear
to your sea-shell-whispering navel,
& strained the salty marshes
of your sex
between my milk teeth.
Then I've slept at last,
my teeming head
against your rocking thigh.
Gentle angry mother
poetry,
where could I turn
from the terror of the night
but to your sweet maddening
ambivalence?
Where could I rest
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