A Poem by Ralph Monday

Dinner with the Ghost of Marilyn Monroe

An odd pair these two,
Marilyn's ghost, Rush
And his cigar, dinner date
For the living and the perished
Though difficult to fathom
Which airwave specter
Truly voices knobs of desire:
A lipstick microphone or a
Golden ass pundit braying.
She didn't discuss Robert
Or Jack.
He never mentioned femi-Nazis,
Obama or Romney.
She dined on ghost bites,
He on filet mignon.
How can one distinguish the
Living from the dead?
Radio or movie dittos
Slaughtered images,
Soundwaves slicing dead air.
Marilyn blonde, unbloodied;
Rush balding, forever eating
Progressives, Marilyn drinking
Presidents, they inhale the
Same group vapors and she
In her dress, he in his tie,
Are removed from the land
Of the living.

 

 

Ralph Monday is an Associate Professor of English at Roane State Community College in Harriman, TN., where he teaches composition, literature, and creative writing courses. In fall 2013 he had poems published in The New Plains Review, New Liberties Review, Fiction Week Literary Review, and was represented as the featured poet with 12 poems in the December issue of Poetry Repairs. In winter 2014 he had poems published in Dead Snakes. Summer 2014 will see a poem in Contemporary Poetry: An Anthology of Best Present Day Poems. His work has appeared in publications such as The Phoenix, Bitter Creek Review, Impressions, Kookamonga Square, Deep Waters, Jacket Magazine, The New Plains Review, New Liberties Review, Crack the Spine, Dead Snakes and Poetry Repairs.