“Frank was always washing his hands constantly
washing, washing, as if he was trying to wash his
life away.”
TV Producer Irving Mansfield
We shd all live our lives
With paychecks so huge
They cd subsidize
The peasantry of Eastern Europe,
Or, in 4D Technicolor
Open a collective farm
In the bridal suite
Of the Waldorf Hotel.
William Manchester once sd:
“I think Frank Sinatra was
The most hated man of World War II.”
My, my, my. How times change.
Music: an essential component
Of all living matter,
Drips from his skinny frame
As the voice of The Voice
Finishes dead heat
With starfall, planet drift.
Crooning fractures
Of 4 A,M. all night parties.
He invites a universe of lovers
To become co-conspirators.
Archangels of low notes descend
Into landfalls of sex.
Time-warped by flackery
Of press-agencies
& ground loops of bobby-soxers.,
Alexander J. Dorogokupetz
Pelts Sinatra with raw eggs,
But it’s the phrasing
& the way you wear your hat
That separates men from boys,
Singers from the non-singers.
4 A.M. & the radio in the hotel room
Plays “I’m a Fool to Want You”
Inspiring in his listeners
To believe in 2 grand beliefs:
The miraculous & the mundane
& how often they entwine.
As for his headline making temper,
Did the great god Zeus
Ever have a fury like his?
“… he’s a skinny little bastard
And his bones kinda rattle together,”
Sd Bogie. Later Lauren Bacall
Comes close to marrying
The skinny little bastard.
“There Will Never Be Another You.”
“Only the Lonely.” Slow sad songs
Poignant with loss.
Isn’t that what we stayed up all night to hear?
Louis Phillips’ recent poetry publications include The Domain of Silence, The Domain of Absence: New and Selected Poems (Pleasure Boat Studio, 2015), The Domain of Small Mercies: New & Selected Poems ], Volume 2 (Pleasure Boat Studio, 2017), How Wide the Meadow (World Audience Publishers, 2019).
Ah what wonderfu memories I have of mashing away with my 11th grade girlfriend to a Sinatra soundtrack played on LP over and over