“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).