pulp fiction

an ekphrasis: cover art of 'Marijuana Girl'

Marijuana Girl (1951) by N. R. De Mexico, cover art signed but illegible

"Marijuana Girl will get you through times of no money better'n money will get you through times of no Marijuana Girl." -Knees Calhoon. So reads one rave review of the 1951 novel by Robert Campbell Bragg (1918-1954) written under the singular pseudonym, N.R. DeMexico. Original copies are considered collectibles; it even has a place in The Hash Marihuana & Hemp Museum in Amsterdam. Can’t claim to have read it myself, but the cover art did result in a poem.

Marijuana Girl by N. R. DeMexico

something has happened 
to the girl I remember from the cover
the girl who traded her body
for drugs and kicks

somehow she’s lost her garters 
the black hose
the pink shag rug
in the dimly lit room 

somehow her luxurious 
red hair has fallen 
stringy and damp
over her pallor
white-button earrings 
absent from her lobes 

and although her legs 
remain ever open
she no longer lets  
a shoulder strap fall 
seductively and instead
wears a baggy beige t-shirt 
with this cracked Nike Swoosh® 
pasted across her breasts 
and stained brown 
with tomato sauce