Book - Poem by Prabhakar Subramaniam

This book stops me at the door
Like in a club
Enforcing a skin code
Dress code or whatever;
After a few pages
The link is lost
Like in my computer
Which blocks me often
Saying this page
Is not available
Or something like that;
It is much praised
By the cognoscenti
Who look down upon
Those who have not read it.
When I press my friend
Who knows about these things
For directions on
How to get through it,
He tells me loftily
'You cannot, if it will not! '
After several attempts
Like reading from the end
Beginning in the middle
And trying to work my way
First left and then right
I finally gave up.
However I do not confess
I'm yet to finish it
Like I used to.
Everytime I look at it
Lying with a supercilious smile
In the shelf
I avert my eyes.