A SHORT HISTORY OF PORNOGRAPHY
The Greeks went in for some really hardcore
Tableware. They had plates and beakers
Painted with well buff, grinning, big boys
Doing it every whichaway
To common whores with frizzy hairdos.
Not a whole lot of respect for women
There one feels.
But some of it’s sweet
This lovely couple- with her on top-
Look equal, and they’re having fun,
Gazing into each other’s eyes.
I’d have no qualms about eating my bread
And grapes off them.
Scenes of congress on dining room walls
Where women, kids and servants could see ‘em.
I call that civilised.
When
Was dug from its tufa the dilettanti
Kept all the good stuff out of sight.
And traded phalloi and dinky statues
And prints of the same in small editions
Like Pokemon cards.
And only men
With properly elevated minds
(Which meant, in practice, a private income)
Were in on the game.
I proffer “cum”
To my search engine and after a handful
Of jolly sites in devotional Latin,
We’re into the good old bizarre bazaar-
A billion pictures of what you like,
But none, I think, painted on crockery.
If I had kids I could put a lock
On the engine, keep their scrabbling minds
From the fundamentals.
When I was a kid
I’d scrape up my peas and potato to get
At the bunnykins pattern underneath.
Just think how big an incentive your Greek
Or Roman kid had to clear its plate.
