Marilyn Monroe Syndrome
by Richard Simmonds

Anita Ekberg died this week.
She was 83.
Sylvia in La Dolce Vita
she romped with Marcello Mastroianni
in the Trivi Fountain.
It put her in the lime-light.

She was a sex goddess,
but cold. She could never
overtake Marilyn Monroe,
who would have been 87
had she lived

Marilyn’s star flickered,
a great comic actress.
She had a sexuality charged
with charm that quietly melted
everything in sight.

She caught Joe DiMaggio
and cast Arthur Miller
as a husband and mentor.
She played a wonderful game
with Tony Curtis and Jack Lemon
and she purred “Happy Birthday”
to President Kennedy
and caused the mass erection
of the American male in fantasyland.

She toyed with her sex appeal
like a kitten with a ball of yarn.
And raised the temperature
of Hollywood at least five degrees.

Did she know as she slipped
into death with an empty bottle
of barbiturates beside her
that she would still be a star,
an icon, after all these years?
A sex symbol, a template
for the blonde bombshell.

A blonded long-time friend
with large curls around her face
and I were riding on the 49 bus
in the back. A middle-aged man
came over to her:

“I’ve never done this before
but I have to tell you
You are a beautiful woman.
You look just like Marilyn Monroe.
You’ve made my day.”

She quietly turned away, after nodding,
She looked out the window,
smiled, felt warmer and younger.
It might have added years to her life.