Sketch of poet John Lehman by artist Spencer Walts, from the back cover of Shrine of the Tooth Fairy.
We’re celebrating the release of the ebook edition of John Lehman’s poetry collection, Shrine of the Tooth Fairy, first published by Cambridge Book Review Press in 1998 with illustrations and cover art by Spencer Walts. John stopped by for coffee this morning and we recorded him reading from the collection. Here’s “Clark Street Rag”:
Clark Street Rag / John Lehman
On a night that shadows make tents
of backrooms a streetcar strums
past the cemetery
on the corner of Clark and Wilson
as Harold the Upholsterer
eyes a 1911 D penny,
the air in his shop suffocating
as a worn cushion—
dusty, warm, smelling of mold.
“I lost this,” he says and points
to a left ear chewed past the lobe,
“in a fight to a guy
who vomited so hard he died …
with the help of a pen knife.”
Floorboards creak in the vacant
apartment above.
Harold runs his thumb along the
counter’s glass edge.
He is a Pharaoh with a jeweler’s lamp
and the moon’s rays trapped
in his tomb.
“Four dollars.”
It twists from his mouth, a sound
like dry leather,
to the boy with an envelope
clutched in his hand.
And my heart plays banjo
to a city of small deals!
Spencer Walts illustration from Shrine of the Tooth Fairy.
John Lehman stopped by this morning for coffee and audio. We’re celebrating the release of the Kindle ebook edition of John’s poetry collection, Shrine of the Tooth Fairy, first published by Cambridge Book Review Press in 1998. The ebook includes Spencer Walts’s wonderful illustrations. Here’s John earlier today reading “Del’s Supper Club”:
Del’s Supper Club / John Lehman
They used to sit on car hoods
along the beach
or turn radio knobs and cigarettes
and watch the coil
of sun go out
and wait
for distant rumblings,
for the smell of lightning
from across the lake.
Now they applaud
tumbles
of liar’s dice
in a leather cup—
white shirt, short sleeved men,
who might sell appliances or tires
their wrist hairs coil
so smoothly
over chainlinked bands.
Laughter barks
from gesturing hands.
They caress a party glass
with a pin-up in a dress
that disappears
behind ice and gin
as the incandescent sign
through an open window’s screen
blurs
into a lipstick blot,
red taffeta,
eye glass frames of plastic bone.
They drift to midnights long ago
when bodies slid from clothes
and in the river glided over rocks,
their fingers slipping into moss,
while pines reeked, overripe
as rotting cantaloupe.
They hesitate,
alone,
at urinals,
with feet raised on rails at bars,
and in parking lots
at the door handles of their cars,
listening
to a green strand of neon
snap.
Spencer Walts illustration from Shrine of the Tooth Fairy.
Happy Holidays from Cambridge Book Review Press. We’ve dropped the price on Shrine of the Tooth Fairy, John Lehman’s wide-ranging collection of poetry, first published in 1998 with illustrations by Spencer Walts. For a limited time, the $8.00 paperback will be available for $2.99. John’s stopping by the CBR studio this week to record some Tooth Fairy audio that we’ll be posting soon. Plus, a Kindle edition is on the way!
~
Survey of Teachers’ Sexual Fantasies / John Lehman
Phys Ed
When we moved away
from our old house
I left a magazine
of naked women
with pillowy breasts
hidden in the attic.
We stopped at a motel
with an indoor pool
that smelled like warm semen.
My parents stayed
in their room,
drank bourbon.
I dove again and again
through clouds.
Home Ec
Once she had a boy
in her classroom.
He sat slouched in the corner.
“His eyes glowed,” she said,
“like that back left burner
I just turned off.”
She thought his bare arm
looked like baking sponge-cake.
She touched it.
It was greased metal.
Assistant Principal
It tastes so good
don’t ever try it
even once.
English
The fish’s belly—
slippery smooth,
whiter than the neck
under a girl’s long hair—
is kissed
purple, red, yellow,
and blue
by the lamprey’s bite.
Metal Shop
I love a good truck.
Art
I was married to a man
who once was my student.
He, not I, could have been
another Auguste Rodin.
I loved the way he listened
to my words when I talked,
and when he did
I listened to them too.
Mathematics
I’m going to drive
to Ann Arbor for a convention.
I like to go kind of slow
in my ranchwagon,
watch those women go by
alone in their cars.
I like the ones
with short black hair,
eyes bulging behind wire glasses.
Not cool blondes,
but new housewives
with buckteeth
who won’t look back.
Sometimes I’m late.
I forget, go too slow.
History
My young man died in Vietnam
pouring the foundation for
a village school by himself.
Shot. From bushes. His rifle
wrapped in plastic to keep it
clean, against a tree.
At nights—his lieutenant
was kind enough to write—
he had been digging a well
by hand with a shovel.
The officer wondered if
it weren’t a sort of grave.
But I know. Stripped, sweating,
breathing hard in the dark,
he is burrowing home to me.
Janitor
Lock your doors and windows.
We don’t want trouble here,
if you know what I mean.
Coffee Spew 