Marilyn

Someone was asking the other day if I'd written any pantoums, so here's one. I think the form, with useful repetition of lines, works well with the subject. The poem is a response to Andy Warhol's Marilyn Diptych, right.

Marilyn

On display like cans of soup

stacked on shelves in a shop

her identical faces screened in silk

fifty images lined up in neat rows

 

stacked as if on shelves in a shop

a branded icon of the movies

fifty images lined up in neat rows

a perfect product of her time

 

a branded icon of the movies

in bright yellow, pink and blue

a perfect product of her time

until her shining star blurs

 

from bright yellow, pink and blue

to slated monotones

until her shining star blurs

as ink smudges over her image

 

to slated monotones

and she is blacked out

as ink smudges over her image

and she fades almost to nothing.

 

She is blacked out

fifty stills of her on the wall

but she fades to almost nothing

a ghosted outline of a movie star.

 

Fifty stills of her fill the wall

but she becomes invisible to us

a ghostly outline of herself.

And she died, just one, alone.