Poem-A-Day: One Shies at the Prospect of Raising Yet Another Defense of Cannibalism by Joshua Bell

November 21, 2013 One Shies at the Prospect of Raising Yet Another Defense of Cannibalism by Josh Bell "You can't kiss a movie," Jean Luc Godard said, and this is mostly true, in that you cannot initiate the kiss. The Movie could initiate the kiss if The Movie wanted, as it is so much taller, leaning in, no way to demur, you would be too polite anyway, and, as the Roman poets have stressed, there is always something porous in the decorous. So there can be kissing between you and The Movie, and it would be amazing, better the more incoherent The Movie is and the more you had to pay to see it, though in the movies it is said that prostitutes don't like to kiss as kissing is too personal, though I disagree, as sometimes the human will make a show of locating you with a kiss, almost to prove to you that you are a real person with a face and that, absolutely, they know where the face is and the face isn't, and this is how you know, for sure, that both of you have been paid. But I don't want to make you feel bad here, and I apologize, for you are entirely kissable, as I have watched you through windows and keyholes even though, up to this point, you do not appear in movies. Often you appear holding a book in your hand and with God knows what playing in your head-I imagine you repeating to yourself, over and again, "the horse knows the way, the horse knows the way"-and remember: even someone as learned in film as Jean Luc Godard got it a little wrong. You can kiss The Movie, if The Movie wants to kiss you. It's just that The Movie, finally, isn't all that interested in your mouth.     Copyright © 2013 by Josh Bell. Used with permission of the author.   About This Poem "When I lived in New York, I spent a lot of time in the AMC megaplex on 42nd street, hiding from crowds. If I went during the week and picked the right movie, I could be certain of sitting in an empty theater. To excuse the days I wasted like this, I wrote during the movies. According to my notebook, this poem came out of lines written while watching the 2011 remake of Straw Dogs and the Anna Faris movie, What's Your Number?" --Josh Bell Most Recent Book by Bell No Planets Strike  (Bison Books, 2008)           Poem-A-Day Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-A-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends. Browse the Poem-A-Day Archive.   Josh Bell is the author of No Planets Strike (Bison Books, 2008). He is the Briggs-Copeland Lecturer on English at Harvard University.   Related Poems To the Film Industry in Crisis by Frank O'Hara  Old Boy by A. Van Jordan  Homage to Sharon Stone by Lynn Emanuel  __________________________ Rae Armantrout is the judge for the 2014 Walt Whitman first book award. Submit your manuscript online. Deadline: December 1.     Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.

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