Love, death, sleeping <br />with somebody else's husband <br />or wife-this <br />is what poetry is <br />about-Eskimo, Aztec, <br />or even Italian <br />Rinascimento, <br />or even the high falutin Greeks <br />or noble Roman-O's. <br /> <br />O the constant turmoil <br />of the human species- <br />beds, graves, Spring with its <br />familiar rosebuds, the wrong beds, <br />the wrong graves, wars <br />unremembered & boundaries gained <br />only to be lost & lost <br />again <br />& lost roses whose lost <br />petals <br />reminded poets to carpe, carpe <br />diem with whoever's wife <br />or husband happened to <br />be handiest! <br /> <br />O Turmoil & Confusion- <br />you are my Muses! <br />O longing for a world <br />without death, without beds <br />divided by walls between houses! <br />All the beds float out to sea! <br />All the dying lovers wave <br />to the other dying lovers! <br />One of them writes on his mistress's skin as he floats. <br /> <br />He is the poet. <br />Not for this <br />will his life be spared.<br /><br />Erica Jong<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/on-reading-a-vast-anthology/
