Climbing You -- Erica Jong

Guest poem sent in by arvind natarajan

(Poem #1322) Climbing You I want to understand the steep thing that climbs ladders in your throat. I can't make sense of you. Everywhere I look you're there-- a vast landmark, a volcano poking its head through the clouds, Gulliver sprawled across Lilliput. I climb into your eyes, looking. The pupils are black painted stage flats. They can be pulled down like window shades. I switch on a light in your iris. Your brain ticks like a bomb. In your offhand, mocking way you've invited me into your chest. Inside: the blur that poses as your heart. I'm supposed to go in with a torch or maybe hot water bottles & defrost it by hand as one defrosts an old refrigerator. It will shudder & sigh (the icebox to the insomniac). Oh there's nothing like love between us. You're the mountain, I am climbing you. If I fall, you won't be all to blame, but you'll wait years maybe for the next doomed expedition -- Erica Jong

Searching for poems by Erica on the net, landed up
reading this lovely poem.

Liked the following lines in particular:

  The pupils are black painted stage flats.
  They can be pulled down like window shades.
  I switch on a light in your iris.

arvind

[Martin adds]

Intriguing poem - I loved the imagery, particularly in the brilliant last
verse. It reminded me a bit of Atwood's [Poem #1093]

        I would like to be the air
        that inhabits you for a moment
        only. I would like to be that unnoticed
        & that necessary.

- there's the same sense of 'selfless' attachment, and the wryly humorous
tone promising more, perhaps, than the other is willing to receive.

martin

Biography:

 Born March 26, 1942, New York to Seymour Mann a
 musician, and Eda Mirsky, a painter.

 Interesting to note that her first publication party,
 in 1971, was held in a fruit and vegetable market. She
 read selections from her poetry book "Fruits &
 Vegetables" perched on a crate of grapefruits and
 oranges!

 More on her website www.ericajong.com