Depression in Early Spring

Meathooks, notebooks,
the whole city sky palely flaming
& spectral bombs
hitting that patch of river
I see from my eastern window.

The poets are dead, the city dying.
Anne, Sylvia, Keats
with his passionate lungs,
Berryman jumping from the bridge & waving,
all the dreamers dead
of their own dreams.

Why have I stayed on as Horatio?
Anne sends poems from the grave,
Sylvia, letters.
John Keats's ghostly cough
comes through the wall board.
What am I doing here?
Why contend?

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poem by Erica Jong
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The Rose

You gave me a rose
last time we met.

I told myself
if it bloomed
our love would bloom,
& if it died-

O I did not
consider
the possibility.

It died.

Though I cut
the stem
on a slant
as my mother
taught me,
though I dropped

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poem by Erica Jong
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This Element

Looking for a place
where we might turn off
the inner dialogue,
the monologue
of futures & regrets,
of pasts not past enough
& futures that may never come
to pass,
we found this boat
bobbing in the blue,
this refuge amid reefs,
this white hull
within this azure sibilance of sea,
this central rocking
so like the rocking
before birth.

Venus was born of the waters,
borne over them
to teach us about love-

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poem by Erica Jong
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Morning Madness

Exploring each other's
depths,
that surge of connection
which makes the world
seem sane,
that exchange of spirit
in the guise of flesh,
that morning hallelujah,
that hook
to eternity. . . .

All day I bear you
between my legs,
& in my heart.
Powered by your love,
there is no hill
too high to climb,
no paragraph
I cannot write,
no hosanna

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poem by Erica Jong
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The Book with Four Backs

I put our books face to face
so they could talk.
They whispered about us.

I put yours on top of mine.
They would not mate.

Like poor dumb pandas in the London Zoo,
they would not come together.

I put them back to back.
They would not sleep.

I put them right side up to upside down.
They would not lick each other's wounds.

The night we met
you fed me fish eggs & dark beer.
We spoke of animals & Shakespeare.
You talked about acidic inks & papers.

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poem by Erica Jong
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For My Husband

You sleep in the darkness,
you with the back I love
& the gift of sleeping
through my noisy nights of poetry.

I have taken other men into my thoughts
since I met you.
I have loved parts of them.
But only you sleep on through the darkness
like a mountain where my house is planted,
like a rock on which my temple stands,
like a great dictionary holding every word-
even some
I have never spoken.

You breathe.
The pages of your dreams are riffled
by the winds of my writing.
The pillow creases your cheek
as I cover pages.

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poem by Erica Jong
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Http://www.ericajong.com/poems/onsendinghair.htm

There is a white wood house near Hampstead Heath
in whose garden the nightingale still sings.
Though Keats is dead, the bird who sang of death
returns with melodies, on easeful wings.

A lock of hair the poet's love received
remains in the room where first it was shorn;
An heirloom, its history half-believed,
its strands now faded and its ribbon worn.

On polished floors, through squares of summer sun
I felt his footsteps move, as if the elf
- deceiving elf, he called her - had not done
with making mischief to amuse herself.

I saw him clip that tousled lock of hair,
and though he did not offer it to me,
I felt that I was privileged, standing there,
and took his gesture for my legacy.

poem by Erica Jong
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Demeter At Dusk

At dusk Demeter
becomes afraid
for baby Persephone
lost in that hell
which she herself created
with her love.

Excess of love-
the woman's curse,
the curse of loving
that which causes pain,
the curse of bringing forth
in pain,
the curse of bearing,
bearing always pain.

Demeter pauses, listening for her child-
this fertile goddess
with her golden hair, bringing forth
wheat and fruit and wildflowers

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poem by Erica Jong
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My Death

'Death is our eternal companion,' Don Juan said with a most serious air. 'It is always to our left, at an arm's length . . . It has always been watching you. It always will until the day it taps you.'
-Carlos Castaneda

My death
looks exactly like me.
She lives to my left,
at exactly an arm's length.
She has my face, hair, hands;
she ages
as I grow older.

Sometimes, at night,
my death awakens me
or else appears in dreams
I did not write.
Sometimes a sudden wind
blows from nowhere,
& I look left
& see my death.

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poem by Erica Jong
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Monkshood

Most beautiful of poisons,
border-plant,
wearing your small green cowl,
little friar, little murderer,
aconitine flows
from your roots
to your deep purple flowers,
small deceiver,
centerpiece
for a poisonous
feast.

A few leaves
in the salad,
a few seeds
in the soup,
a thick root
to flavor
the stock-
& it is all over.

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poem by Erica Jong
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