artwork: ralph murre
Pornographic Literature
by John Lehman
to read from a new
collection of
poems. Inside the
store a poster
and pyramid of books
make me feel
good until it’s ten
minutes after seven
and nobody has come. I
sign copies
as if a public cared,
feign interest in
the contents of a
nearby shelf and
twenty minutes later grab my poster
and quietly disappear.
On the long ride home I stop at an
adult
bookstore in a metal shack
along
a frontage road. Here the
patrons
take literature seriously,
groping
video boxes and plastic
bags
of nude bodies copulating
on
covers of magazines. Who
ever
caressed a book of poetry
with
such urgency or quivered
from
thoughts of what might wait
inside?
A pudgy, post-pubescent
clerk
with an eight ball tattooed
on
his arm surveys the shadows
as
if to say, “Buy something,
people, it
ain’t art for art’s sake,
and don’t even think of pilfering
the
fucking merchandise.”
You, standing in Barnes & Noble
wondering about this
jumble of
abandoned, autographed
books,
have you ever stolen a collection
of poetry,
slipped it in your belt
so its
corners poke the inside of
your legs? No
arched back or
joyous spasms
here, but a thrill
of rushing
toward the night with
this
forbidden shape pressed
tight against
your groin.
And afterwards, when you’re free
of sex, you can read a poem or
two, they’re at least as good as
something else and, unlike porn- ography, a
book of poems can
be placed upon your coffee table
so if friends you want to impress
ask, “Do you get off on poetry?”
you can reply, “Yes, I put my arms about it, yes and draw it
down
to me, yes, I say yes, I will yes.”
~ previously published in Dogs Dream of Running (Salmon Run Press)
