Is a poem written by Sharon Olds. While many of her poems are far more elegant than this one, for me it has always been one of her most memorable.
Death of Marilyn Monroe
The ambulance men touched her cold
body, lifted it, heavy as iron,
onto the stretcher, tried to close
the mouth, closed the eyes, tied the
arms to the side, moved a caught
strand of hair, as if it mattered,
saw the shape of her breasts, flattened by
gravity, under the sheet,
carried her, as if it were she,
down the steps.
These men were never the same. They went out
afterwards, as they always did,
for a drink or two, but they could not meet
each other's eyes.
Their lives took
a turn—one had nightmares, strange
pains, impotence, depression. One did not
like his work, his wife looked
different, his kids. Even death
seemed different to him—a place where she
would be waiting,
and one found himself standing at night
in the doorway to a room of sleep, listening to a
woman breathing, just an ordinary
woman
breathing.
Do you enjoy the poem? Does it mean anything to you? I'd love to hear any impressions you might have. Incidentally I'm not really interested in scholarly interpretations, I'd like to know what it means to you, presuming that it strikes any sort of chord at all. This is the way poems are meant to be read, in my opinion, though thousands of stuffier individuals would love to disagree 🙂
More of her work HERE in the right hand sidebar. Look out for "True Love", it's a WONDERFUL poem.
hugs and love
capegirl
Death is a non-entity until it touches you: when it takes you or someone you know. These two men had always done their job, probably quite well, staying detached.Then they had to pick up somebody that they knew and that they idolized. How can you not love Marilyn Monroe and want to know her? They had known her from a distance and suddenly had to face up to her humanity.If someone so perfect can be so fragile, what does that mean to the rest of us? In that light, you can despair that life is pointless and sad. You can idolize death as a release like the first man. On the other hand,like the second man, you can embrace life and revel in the simplest things, like the sound of a peaceful sleep.
It’s a very realistic poem, no detour or double sense. It tells how it is, you have it in the face…. It’s refreshing and it’s the way I make mine mostly. Yes I do write some…:)(I really didn’t know Sharon Olds but I’ll check for her, thanks)
never read that before… how sad… thanks for sharing Michelle.
Wow. That must have been a very profound moment for those men. She was the ‘It’ girl of her time, like ‘we never met in life but I’m carring u to the morgue’.It’s left me reminiscent. :star:
:cool:How are you doing capegirl?
Norma Jean will never grow old. Her influence is felt up to today.
Amen to that!
😆
hi everyone! i’ll be back in a bit with some thoughts..it’s just been really busy here at work/home :faint:
Hey, I can totally understand that.Do what ya gotta do.Take your time.Hurry up.Choice is yours.Don’t be late.
Welcome:lol:
It’s a pretty morbid poem. These men knew who they were bringing to the morgue,and it was disheartening to see the embodiment of everything they ever lusted for stiff and lifeless, seemingly rotting before their eyes. It must have been like fantasy fading from a child’s imagination… the point in which we face the actual world around us. Someone poked holes in my blow-up doll…. Unlisted said it best.
let’s see:I certainly don’t idolize or idealize Marilyn.or anybody. especially myself.I think Marilyn had a many flaws and plenty of problems. Her appeal was largely physical and somewhat psychological since she chose to and knew how to use it to her “advantage” we could get into myriad discussions as to how much of an advantage that actually was, but well….she was doing what she thought made the most sense to her at the time..as we all do, right or wrong..effective or pointless.James I enjoyed your interpretation, the one place i differed was the last line. For me this is a poem about illusion, about how human it is to fall prey to them. No doubt Marilyn was a human as we all are, as human as his wife, yet illusions can be so powerful that they fool us into thinking they’re real. I saw this last line as illustrating this…his wife seeming ordinary..possibly not as special or idyllic..in comparison to the perceived gossamer of Marilyn. That’s how I read it, anyway. A comment on how hard it can be to let go of illusion despite it’s rampant stupidity.perhaps the “death” referred to here, was a death of illusion in the minds of these men. and yes, perhaps he comes to appreciate his wife more as a consequence. yes.Martin, her poems are all like that..very honest, in your face..but yet causing a deeper shift. Are your poems mostly in French? I’d love to read some…but i’d better not put them through the Tower of Babel :):eyes:Isabel>> it is a sad poem in one sense.. but that depends if you interpret the human condition as inherently “sad” I personally find the way in which we’re ridiculous sometimes quite interesting to watch :DRhona> yes the “death” aspect is very strong here..but yet it’s so linked to her life…that they can’t be separated..i found that interesting too.qlue> she’d have been 80 or so now? she still does influence the entertainment business, art, literature…yes that indefinable “something”. located largely in our own minds.Dillon> there is nothing more life affirming than holes in the blow-up doll! if you choose to use it that way :DSonam! Long time no see. How are you?
I’m not sure Marilyn had much control over her life. In those days the movie studios basically owned u. U were trained for the big screen and every aspect of ur life was choosen for u in the name of image. Maybe at the end she was taking more control of using her sexuality, maybe not. She was wacked out a lot. 🙂
yeah i agree in a sense, but also she wanted the fame-she was there by “choice” playing the fame game. she wanted the jobs, the deals, the contracts(from what i’ve read. i wasn’t there..but of course “choice” is a misnomer sometimes since it’s sometimes so colored by our backgound, childhood etc..sometimes we’re making choices that seem fitting and are really dysfunctional and we’re not aware….it might have all looked like the “love” she felt she lacked…that sort of thing can be deadly…if we don’t wise up sooner rather than later…
Marilyn.. I mean Michelle, :DJust read True Love from her. Il est parfait, merveilleux. And yes I write mainly in french -the result is way better trust me!- 🙂 I’ll look to find one, I’ll play “Babel” myself.
Such a great poem huh?here is is for everybody else to also share:True Love by Sharon Olds In the middle of the night, when we get up after making love, we look at each other in complete friendship, we know so fully what the other has been doing. Bound to each other like mountaineers coming down from a mountain, bound with the tie of the delivery room, we wander down the hall to the bathroom, I can hardly walk, I wobble through the granular shadowless air, I know where you are with my eyes closed, we are bound to each other with huge invisible threads, our sexes muted, exhausted, crushed, the whole body a sex—surely this is the most blessed time of my life, our children asleep in their beds, each fate like a vein of abiding mineral not discovered yet. I sit on the toilet in the night, you are somewhere in the room, I open the window and snow has fallen in a steep drift, against the pane, I look up, into it, a wall of cold crystals, silent and glistening, I quietly call to you and you come and hold my hand and I say I cannot see beyond it. I cannot see beyond.
Wow….nice….:yes:I’m fine…I hope that you are fine too…what are you up to nowadays:lol:
yeah…. wow. I’d like to find someone I feel that way about 😀
hi Sonam, I worked today, and now i’m going to do some yoga 😀 how about you?rhona..when i read that poem i see somehow the road they walked to get there…a bumpy road that kept hoping and believing, even during dark times 😀
Yeah, I had that once. I think I’m jadded, or lost innocence *sigh*
Mmmm… deep. I’ll be thinking about that. Thanks Michelle 🙂
well we can’t hope alone either. love is a two-way street. somewhere on this blog is a quote by Jewel:”Innocence can’t be lost, it just needs to be maintained”i believe this with my whole heart. hard as it is.
i have a mantra:the things that others do to you do not define you.the things that you have done do not define you.YOU define you.what you do from now on defines you, how you respond to your history, creates a new history. so respond with love and kindness.*and treat yourself like a princess*PUMA!!!!:heart:
I like it, Michelle. I like it alot except for that “princess” clause. Is it okay if I just treat myself like a prince?Maybe even an archduke type of self-respect, but I’m not so self-assured that the princess thing is gonna work for me. The things that I and/or other do/have done mustn’t define me.At the same time, the things we DON’T DO can limit how we define ourselves. Then again, I’m not eager to define myself as a cobra wrestler…
wow. i’m so sexy.i mean sexist.you may be a prince then, or a king or even a sheik :Dabsolutely. part of what we’re doing is what we’re NOT doing, also. damn tootin’, honey.
Cool that you find yoga useful….Presently i’m in my college dorm. today was a study leave so we were playing football in the morning:lol:Now, i’ll be going to the library…i have to do some research for the semester-end-project:yuck:
School sucks. I really really really really don’t miss it. :rolleyes:
I really like ur mantra, Michelle.I always try to treat myself like a princess, even if it’s just a puma princess :Dhow you respond to your history, creates a new history.Defining words 🙂
Sure…..Only Those Who Create History….Are Remembered Forever
Ooooo…I like that one 🙂
I just made it up myself:lol:
Classic 😎 😀
You can try it too….its simple….begin with your mother’s most common comment about you:lol:
who doesn’t create history?? it may not be famous history, but it’s still history. my grandmother will be remembered forever, for example…because we remember her and pass that on….
Right Michelle but there r people who really don’t make a history at all or even strive to.Not anyone here though!! 😀
i think we all make history and that’s why we should be conscious of what we’re doing. even the homeless guy found dead in the nature reserve on monday. our potential for what sort is often rooted in childhood and past experiences. but can evolve based on our adult responses. there is always change but not everybody grabs hold of that or knows how…i wondered about this man. who was he? what was he like? what brought him to this sad end? was he, in fact, sad? we can’t know…but yes some strive less hard to create something positive. sometimes they just don’t ask the right questions..
I totally agree with u :happy:Or they just don’t know how to.
I completely disagree with you Mitchelle…not all people create history…remebring a person related to you is different to remembering someone whom you don’t know personally…but you surely admire him for something he/she had done to affect you and your life:lol:
I completely disagree with you Mitchelle…not all people create history…remebring a person related to you is different to remembering someone whom you don’t know personally…but you surely admire him for something he/she had done to affect you and your life:lol:
i understood what you meant Sonam 😀 i just don’t have the same definition of “history” as you. and i don’t differentiate between famous and less notable people. sure there are people who have changed the world, but that does not mean that they are the only ones who are remembered forever or worth remembering.”only those who create history are remembered forever”some we don’t want to remember. Adolf Hitler?i don’t completely disagree with you btw. i just think that life is more complex than that. and the inclusion of the word “only” as though some are not creating history. we all are.
Yeah…correct….we do change the world with everything we do…:lol:Only the consequences maybe big or small:sherlock:
i also believe that we are all “changing the world” every day with everything we do and everything we say and are..for better or worse…if you look at it in a global context…and there is no other way IMHO.
i think the consequences may not be easily noticed, but they aren’t necessarily “small”.
If you toss a single pebble in a pond it makes ripples, and it’s easy to see where they start. Toss in a handful, and you can’t tell one set of ripples from another. Though that doesn’t make one set any better or worse than another.Things happen all the time that have untraceable roots. Who first made a fire? Who spoke the first words of any language? We’ll never know, but we’ll always be affected by those events.So I won’t discount anybody’s effect nor their importance. We can’t be sure of those things, but we can be sure sometimes of our effect on those close to us.Try to make your effect – and your affect – a good one.
how nicely and gently you expressed it James 😀 yes very yinyang. 😀
:up: JamesWhat’s IMHO mean Michelle? 🙂
oh. “in my humble opinion” Rhona! 😀 i never love to have opinion vs. opinion discussions too much anymore, you know. opinions aren’t right or wrong are they? they’re opinions. facts i might have a discussion about. things we can actually know are true or false, but this is an interesting area: That’s blue! No it’s not it’s turquoise. Turquoise is a shade of blue, not it’s not it’s a different color all together, that’s why it’s called turquoise! ha ha! oh well that’s being human, huh?:D
Oh :)I have an interesting dilemma going on in regards to opinion. My son’s dad thinks it’s skill building to allow r 5 yr old to play army blasting shoot em up Nintendo games designed for adults, and I think it trains him to respond to over stimulus and many other reasons, I could bla bla for hours :rolleyes:What do u think about that? Anyone 🙂
hell no. say I! adult games are for adults. (or for adults who are still children) :devil:there are many other skill bulding games that could be used instead. there is even the possibility of real weapons handling later on if you feel the need. the kind that are controlled and responsible. that sort of training is quite positive i believe if handled correctly since it helps teach responsibility as well as autonomy and mental control..self-confidence…but each to their own….every child is different, too.personally i’d say these games make people emotionally trigger happy and lead kids to think there is instant gratification at all times in the world-but that’s just me. we all know how addictive computers can be and how they can distort reality. how much harder for a child?however i wouldn’t want to raise my son/daughter to be “soft” in the world either, but there’s other ways to make a child self-sufficient, like camping 😀 i’d go for real world experiences as skill building activities any day over computers!i know many men who regularly handle weapons,etc, and they’re very responsible men, so exposure to violence or its channels are not the only defining factor when it comes to general dysfunction. that can be quite layered. he’d probably be more impacted by an argument over it, than by the game itself (not saying you’re arguing destructively-just an example) :Dit’s your child-so you both have a say of course. btw i have no problem sharing opinions, just not doing battle with them 😀 so chat away everybody..just don’t fight on muh blog!