Testament (Homage to Walt Whitman)



I, Erica Jong, in the midst of my life,
having had two parents, two sisters,
two husbands, two books of poems
& three decades of pain,
having cried for those that did not love me
those who loved me- but not enough
& those whom I did not love-

declare myself now for joy

There is pain enough to nourish us everywhere;
it is joy that is scarce…

and tears to drown in, and bile enough to swallow all day long.

Righteous indignation is the religion of the dead, in the house of the dead
where the dead speak to eachother in creaking voices
each arguing a more unhappy childhood than the other.
Unhappiness is cheap,
Childhood is a universal affliction.
I say to hell with the analysts of minus & plus

the life-shrinkers, the diminishers of joy.
I say to hell with anyone
who would suck on misery
like a pacifier
in a toothless mouth.

I say to hell with doom…
Doom is cheap

If the apocalypse is coming,
let us wait for it in joy…

let us not gnash our teeth on the molars of corpses-
though the molars of corpses are plentiful enough.
let us not scorn laughter though scorn is plentiful enough.
Let us laugh and bring plenty to the scorners
for they scorn themselves.
I myself have been a scorner
and have chosen scornful men,
men to echo all that was narrow in myself, men to hurt me as I hurt myself.

In my stinginess my friends have been stingy,
In my narrowness my men have been mean.

I resolve Now for joy.

If that resolve means I must live alone,
I accept aloneness.

If the joy house I inhabit must be
a house of my own making,
I accept that making…

No joy-denyer can deny me now.
For what I have is undeniable.
I inhabit my own house,
the house of joy…

Dear Walt Whiman, horny old nurse to pain,
speaker of passwords primeval.
merit refuser, poet of body and soul..
You were hankering, gross, mystical, nude,
you astonished with the odour of your armpits,
You cocked your hat as you chose;
you cocked your cock,

but you knew “the me myself’.

You believed in your soul,
and believing made others believe in theirs.

The soul is contagious.
One man catches another’s
like the plague;
and we are all patient spiders
to each other.
If we can spin the joy thread
& also catch it-
If we can be sufficient to ourselves,
we need fear no entangling webs…

How to spin joy out of an empty heart?
The joy-egg germinates even in despair.
Orgasms of gloom convulse the world;

& and the joy-seekers huddle together.

We meet on the pages of books & by beachwood fires,
We meet scrawled blackly in many-folded letters.
We know each other by free & generous hands,
We swing like spiders on each other’s souls.



//Erica Jong