Death of the Hollywood Myth
Ode to Marilyn
"Unable are the Loved to die for Love is Immortality" ~ Emily Dickinson.
At times, I begrudgingly find myself being lured to view stories online of the latest Hollywood scandals. The current Sean Diddy Combs mega scandal has so swiftly accelerated as to leave me in a rather horrific stupor of disbelief. Indeed, some of the related revelations about untimely deaths remind me of the curious demise of various Hollywood celebrities and newsmakers going back decades. In the past, after initial public shock at such deaths and their accompanying flurry of vicarious excitement, most of society has generally just moved on without questioning further. Loved ones of the deceased are forgotten and left isolated in their grief and bitterness, their suspicions muffled like autumn leaves by an early winter snowfall.
It is comforting to think that death can in many ways lead to rebirth. In the midst of the hotbed of net driven scandals, it is becoming increasingly possible that the death of Hollywood as we know it could be imminent. Would it be an irreparable loss? It seems to me that rebirth here could be of a more empathic society, where stronger values than those of a pampered elite are an increased focus.
The following poem bubbled up in me like water in a simmering cauldron immediately after I listened to a recent Piers Morgan interview with Jaguar Wright. Morgan has since been unprecedentedly forced to apologize for and to delete this incendiary interview! (I’ve always had a liking for Piers’ broadcasts ever since I heard his kind words to Scottish born talented singer Susan Boyle so many years ago in a viral video of Britain’s Got Talent.) Here is my poem:
Jaguar and the Death of Tinseltown
Sometimes voice as soft as satin,
When she speaks of children dear,
Eyes softening with compassion,
As she unveils memories clear.
In an instant her voice harshens;
Venal predators are condemned.
On arrant stars her contempt fastens,
Enemies who once were friends ---
Beacon light is Jag ‘midst darkness,
Siren call of seething truth.
In strident urgency with finesse,
Jaguar’s accusations ooze.
Depraved Tinseltown beware —-
Remember Romans —- how they fell ---
The truth inferno no one spares,
Releasing minions from your spell.
Corey Elizabeth JacksonI penned this poem so recently that it is not in my upcoming book, but it does relate to a poem that is, as far as Hollywood scandals are concerned. After reading innumerable biographies about the life and death of Marilyn Monroe, I wrote the following ode to her memory after reading Crypt 33, a book that somehow vibrated within me with a visceral ring of truth. Who knows? Maybe that ring of truth will soon become so resounding that it transmutes into a harmonious and enlightening crescendo.
Ode to Marilyn The dark oozed odious Outfit goons, who Heinously chloroformed you. Snuffed with poisoned cruelty Was your beauty, transformed to Ghoulish snapshots, covert, grim, Congealing radiant glow. Still these long years past your pure And shimmering essence flows. Your heart was snared in web of graft, Your soul in splendor wreathed. Ah, dear angel, blessed forever, Rest in loving peace. Corey Elizabeth Jackson
Jaguar Wright pronounces herself to be a Christian, and I surmise that she might understand the bitter sarcasm exhibited at the end of Emily Dickinson’s following poem I shall know why — when Time is over — :
I shall know why—when Time is over—
And I have ceased to wonder why—
Christ will explain each separate anguish
In the fair schoolroom of the sky—
He will tell me what "Peter" promised—
And I—for wonder at his woe—
I shall forget the drop of Anguish
That scalds me now—that scalds me now!
I feel it is Jaguar’s own “Anguish . . . That scalds” that fuels the eloquence of her scathing words. She reveals horrendous examples, from the sordid side of the entertainment and music world, of the searing pain that being human on this earth can encompass. By dissecting the so-called “evil” side of Hollywood, one she knows so well, she exposes with verbally surgical precision what so many players fear therein. Both in Hollywood, and in the broader society alike, many of us are thereby directed just a little closer to a world where love rather than fear is the motivating force.
Interesting