GERALD NICOSIA

North Beach 1991

POEMS FOR MARILYN MONROE AND THE VIET NAM VETERANS

Over my shoulder while I type -

Marilyn Monroe, a photo by Milton H. Greene

In a gaudy ballerina's skirt and dÈcolletage

leaning forward from a wicker chair

breasts full and unafraid

eyes wistful and wounded

yet hopeful and expectant

and everything she had to say in the gesture

of just three fingers beckoning

come to me.

It's a photo I check with each morning

as I write of men destroyed by war

to see how I'm doing, maybe

to see if I can live up to it

and to remember that there is more to this world

than cannons and automatic rifles

come under my skirt she is saying

come inside my dress

there are good things there that will not

tear you apart

things warm, soft, and wet

not hard, jagged, and cutting

 

she invites the thrust of nothing

but human flesh and blood

she does not want to be hurt any more by

all those men who waited

for the chance to be killed and kill

their lust for her

Marilyn the pinup girl of Madison Avenue War

kill by the numbers and count the ears of your dead

like twenties on the dresser of an uptown whore.

Marilyn don't stop

looking over my shoulder

and forgive every one of us who wished

we could own the jewel of your beauty

that killed you like the beauty of morning sunshine

on the waters of Bien Hoa

like the jewel in the toad's forehead

only you were the jewel

and the toad was in your forehead

and that toad was

the need for love

© Gerald Nicosia