Happy Birthday, Marilyn

On June the first, birthday of  the first Lady of Gemini

I have to catch my breath running

as a wide receiver catches a football,

shaking off tacklers and heading

for the goal line, progress unimpeded,

or like an angler angling for trout,

turning over phrases languorously

when I feel a tug, catch a bite, that’s

what this jolt of morning joe, like “joltin’

Joe” DiMaggio, has done to me but if

I could calm down long enough to stop

hurrying and concentrate on the lawn

in front of me the wind at my back the laughter

from Alexander Pope’s dagger-like couplets

still echoing from last night’s reading

of The Dunciad – or maybe just to clear

the mind of words, all of them, even

the honeyed sonnets of youth not

lost, just misplaced – if I could look

at the trees darkening as a cloud covers

the sun, look at the grass, the myrtle, the pine

needles and the maple leaves and the one

rhododendron the deer have not devoured,

what then? After ten minutes of bliss,

I shall return to my mind, and she will be singing,

“After You Get What You Want, You Don’t Want It.”

(June 1, 2013)

Comments

[Kyril Alexander Calsoyas]

Confections of culture,
Sugar eternally preserves,
What it renders lifeless.

"Then he: ‘Great tamer of all human art!
First in my care, and ever at my heart;
Dulness!"

Pope's Dunciad

[jim c]

Terrific poem in 2013, terrific poem still!

[Emily Fragos]

Happy birthday, Marilyn Monroe. Your performance in "Some Like It Hot" remains as luminous and magical as ever.