Marilyn Monroe: Fragments

Life—
I am of both your directions

Somehow remain hanging downward 
the most 
but strong as a cobweb in the
wind—I exist more with the cold glistening frost.
But my beaded rays have the colors I’ve
seen in a painting—ah life they
have cheated you 

~

Only parts of us will ever
touch parts of others —
one’s own truth is just that really — one’s own truth.
We can only share the part that is within another’s knowing acceptable to
so one
is for most part alone.
As it is meant to be in
evidently in nature — at best perhaps it could make
our understanding seek
another’s loneliness out.

~

Oh damn I wish that I were dead—absolutely nonexistent—gone away from here—from everywhere but how would I—There is always bridges—the Brooklyn Bridge—But I love that bridge (everything is beautiful from there and the air is so clean) walking it seems peaceful even with all those cars going crazy underneath. So it would have be some other bridge an ugly one and with no view—except I like in particular all bridges—there’s something about them and besides I’ve never seen an ugly bridge.

~

Stones on the walk
every color there is
I stare down at you
like a horizon —
the space / the air is between us beckoning
and I am many stories  up
my feet frightened
as I grasp towards you

~

feel what I feel
within myself — that is trying to
become aware of it
also what I feel in others
not being ashamed of my feeling, thoughts — or ideas

realize the thing that
they are —

~

I’m finding that sincerity
and to be simple or direct as (possible) I’d like
is often taken for sheer stupidity
but since it is not a sincere world —
it’s very probable that being sincere is stupid.
One probably is stupid to
be sincere since it’s in this world
and no other world that we know
for sure we exist — meaning that —
(since reality exists it should be met and dealt with)
since there is reality to deal with

–

o have your heart is
the only completely happy proud  thing (that ever belonged
to me) I’ve ever possessed so

~

I guess I have always been
deeply terrified to really be someone’s
wife
since I know from life
one cannot love another,
ever, really

---

These poems were selected from Fragments: Poems, Intimate Notes, Letters by Marilyn Monroe, edited by Bernard Comment (Farrar, Straus and Giroux (2012).

Bio:

Marilyn Monroe; born Norma Jeane Mortenson (1926 – 1962) was an American actress, model, and singer. Known for playing comic “blonde bombshell” characters, she became one of the most popular sex symbols of the 1950s and early 1960s, as well as an emblem of the era’s sexual revolution. 

After spending much of her childhood in foster homes, Monroe began a career as a model, which led to a film contract in 1946 with Twentieth Century-Fox. Her early film appearances were minor, but her performances in The Asphalt Jungle and All About Eve (both 1950), drew attention. By 1952 she had her first leading role in Don’t Bother to Knock and 1953 brought a lead in Niagara, a melodramatic film noir that dwelt on her seductiveness. Her “dumb blonde” persona was used to comic effect in subsequent films such as Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953), How to Marry a Millionaire (1953) and The Seven Year Itch (1955). Limited by typecasting, Monroe studied at the Actors Studio to broaden her range. Her dramatic performance in Bus Stop (1956) was hailed by critics and garnered a Golden Globe nomination. Her production company, Marilyn Monroe Productions, released The Prince and the Showgirl (1957), for which she received a BAFTA Award nomination and won a David di Donatello award. She received a Golden Globe Award for her performance in Some Like It Hot (1959). Monroe’s last completed film was The Misfits, co-starring Clark Gable with screenplay by her then-husband, Arthur Miller.

She was a top-billed actress for a decade, and her films grossed $200 million (equivalent to $2 billion in 2022) by the time of her death in 1962. Long after her death, Monroe remains a pop culture icon. Although Marilyn was a passionate reader, owning four hundred books at the time of her death, and was often photographed with a book, her intellectual abilities were ignored by Hollywood and the public at large. The final years of Monroe’s life were marked by illness, personal problems, and a reputation for unreliability and unprofessionalism. The circumstances of her death, from an overdose of barbiturates, have been the subject of conjecture. Though officially classified as a “probable suicide”, the possibility of an accidental overdose, as well as of homicide, have not been ruled out. In 1999, Monroe was ranked as the sixth greatest female star of all time by the American Film Institute. In the decades following her death, she has often been cited as both a pop and a cultural icon as well as the quintessential American sex symbol.