TANJA BARTEL : Marilyn Monroe and the Soldiers
LYN LIFSHIN : New England Sunday
JOHN SELAWSKY : April
POETRYREPAIRS 13.09:104
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Marilyn Monroe and the Soldiers New England Sunday April


TANJA BARTEL
Marilyn Monroe and the Soldiers
Rolls of film spilling out of her dress, onto the audience of lovers. Her mink voice pets the ears of a limbless, bombed generation. A blonde balm for shell wounds, for love wounds; the trench of her cleavage filled with a million soldiers' tears. She made weakness beautiful. Men went to war to protect this child-like fragility, having only recently climbed out of child bodies themselves. They held their own shields of feathers in front of their throats, in front of their eyes-- the flickering black and white film of smoke, shot at a death angle in dying light. The protectors and the protected, they are the same: A blonde Finnish soldier left behind by my grandfather in the snow-- it was the Winter War against the Russians; he was left calling for his mother, "Aiti, aiti." He could have been Marilyn slipping into a black dress after losing hope. Love is what we all throw ourselves down for.
POETRYREPAIRS 13.09:104
I have many things to write unto you but I will not write with pen and ink
--JOHN the theologian

FIND home
Marilyn Monroe and the Soldiers New England Sunday April


LYN LIFSHIN
New England Sunday
Main street was empty except for clots of cars near the episcopal Church where dark stone grew moss on the north side and boys threw pennies down into the rail road tracks. I pressed against glass, wished I had to put on a skirt with a half slip to sit in the cool stained glass, my hair brushed then braided, never as straight as I wanted it. Later the rooms would be hot, the blood light sinking, turning my lavender walls mauve, orchid, raspberry. We'd come back from Branbury Beach or my grand mother's porch half asleep. I was already too heavy to be carried. Lulled by grownups slap of cards on the screened porch, as spirea and peonies opened and roses grew away from the house, my mother held me on the glider in the braid of her arms, her green and rose sundress a rainbow in a breeze of cardinals and pine, whispered, "Honey," and pretty," a litany I couldn't believe as I dreamed of more, how it wouldn't always be like this
POETRYREPAIRS 13.09: 104
Poetry endangers the established order  of the soul - Plato

guidelines INDEX
Marilyn Monroe and the Soldiers New England Sunday April


JOHN SELAWSKY
April
On Good Friday, salmon and sorrel from the garden. Hardly as cruel as February, or March. Try that under snow, or the darkness of heavy rain. They would, if they could, remove all variability. As if beauty and goodness were this readily assignable. I have heard it said, on speaker-phone conversations, read it in intraoffice memos, on directives to those who do the work. So that the weather and an emotion and the moment are all easily defined. And they see no danger in that path. No self-defeating goal. No excess of control nor cancellation of the chance that actually has placed them where they are. No ultimate removal of themselves as singular and pure. Maybe whatever it is that you want is a liability. Maybe to understand you have to strip away. Clear the underbrush to view the ground. Maybe you have to return to this beginning. Break bread and plant seed and do less harm. If you possibly can, stand naked in the sun.
POETRYREPAIRS 13.09: 104
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TANJA BARTEL : Marilyn Monroe and the Soldiers
LYN LIFSHIN : New England Sunday
JOHN SELAWSKY : April


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