Helen In Hollywood
When she goes to Hollywood
She is an angel.
She writes in red red lipstick
On the window of her body,
Long for me, oh need me!
Parts her lips like a lotus.
Opening night she stands, poised
On her carpet, luminescent,
Young men humming
All around her. She is flying.
Her high heels are wands, her
Furs electric. Her bracelets
Flashing. How completely
Dazzling her complexion,
How vibrant her hair and eyes,
How brilliant the glow that spreads
Four full feet around her.
She is totally self conscious
Self contained
Self centered,
Caught in the blazing central eye
Of our attention.
We infuse her.
Fans, we wave at her
Like handmaids, unabashedly,
We crowd on tiptoe pressed together
Just to feel the fission of the star
That lives on earth,
The bright, the angel sun
The luminescent glow of someone
Other than we.
Medium for all our energy
As we pour it through her.
Vessel of light,
Her flesh is like flax,
A living fiber.
She is the symbol of our dreams and fears
And bloody visions, all
Our metaphors for living in America.
Harlowe, Holiday, Monroe
Helen
When she goes to Hollywood
She is the fire for all purposes.
Her flesh is like dark wax, a candle.
She is from any place or class.
“That’s the one,” we say in instant recognition,
Because our breath is taken by her beauty,
Or what we call her beauty.
She is glowing from every pore.
We adore her. we imitate and rob her
Adulate envy
Admire neglect
Scorn. leave alone
Invade, fill
Ourselves with her.
We love her, we say
And if she isn’t careful
We may even kill her.
Opening night
She lands on her carpet,
Long fingered hands
Like divining rods
Bobbing and drawing the strands
Of our attention,
As limousine drivers in blue jackets
Stand on the hoods of their cars
To see the angel, talking
Davis, Dietrich, Wood
Tyson, Taylor, Gabor
Helen, when she goes to Hollywood
To be a walking star,
To be an actor
She is far more that a product
Of Max Factor,
Max Factor didn’t make her
Though the make-up helps us
See what we would like
To take her for
Her flesh is like glass,
A chandelier
A mirror
Harlowe, Holiday, Monroe
Helen
When she went to Hollywood
To be an angel
And it is she and not we
Who is different
She who marries the crown prince
Who leads the processional dance,
She who sweeps eternally
Down the steps
In her long round gown.
A leaping, laughing leading lady,
She is our flower.
It is she who lies strangled
In the bell tower;
She who is monumentally drunk and suicidal
Or locked waiting in the hightower,
She who lies sweating with the vicious jungle fever,
Who leaps from her blue window
When he will, if he will, leave her
It is she and not we
Who is the lotus
It is she with the lilies in her hair
And a keyboard beside her,
The dark flesh glowing
She whose wet lips nearly swallow
The microphone, whose whiskey voice
Is precise and sultry and overwhelming,
She who is princess and harlequin,
Athlete and moll and whore and lady,
Goddess of the silver screen
The only original American queen
And Helen
When she was an angel
When she went to Hollywood
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