Where are my reading glasses?

Where are my reading glasses?

 

 

the actress drinks her scripts

spills them on the cutting floor

slices her wrist while driving into oblivion

 

in a sports car she cannot afford

as her debt is a list of credits

longer than the sad life 

she rewrote

 

then had the studio

reject

 

so many young souls

attend seminars in limbo

on how to cope with fame

 

if only that first script would have been kinder, gentler

if only her breakdowns had been part of the film

that was fiction

 

Lana, please get up

Gail, please get up

Gene, please find your way to the information desk

 

someone is calling

they just weren't there when you arrived with your talent

in a suitcase, labeled  for Hollywood

 

This party is too morbid

the video of it 

will find its gawkers

 

but these women had too much talent

and not enough ice to soften the drink

 

not enough ice in their veins

to withstand

the pressure of life

of the lines outside of what was written on the pages

 

Frank O'Hara understood

and pleaded with Ms. Turner to rise

 

but she was out cold

and did not hear a word he wrote in his poems

I am writing poems now

Pleading with friends to get up

 

to hear

to rise

I need them

like one more cube in my drink.

 

to soften the sting.

 

 

erin-cilberto

2/13/24

Reviews

[emmajoygreen]

How much truth, facts and all, follow would-be performers in their quest for success! Tis not only the ladies either. They all walk into a world of rooms offering this for that.. and THAT is often the killer, the bend in the rewards, the curve ball without kindness. Your words hit the nail right bang on the head, draw blood and more with its cruel facts yet would and could be empathy, dear friend. There are people in this ever demanding world that GIVE as a lure sans truths but - complain life-long when replies fail to survive.

You sir, are a rainbow of possibilities and a storm cloud of plausibilities. Many thanks, sir jacob. ,

[jacob erin-cilberto]

Thank you for your very kind review, em,
j.

[emmajoygreen]

I am what could be called - a friend, sir.

[Mari' Emeraude]

The thick skin that kind of life requires, I know I couldn't do it! Great poem.

[jacob erin-cilberto]

I don't think much of most of what I write...but this one I kinda liked so I really appreciate your kind words, Mari
j.

[Anita Frader]

Sometimes things happen in life that we're never really prepared for and can be a shock to our being. Strength in numbers, they say. We draw comfort from those around us on a similar ride or path. Not just comfort but some sanity.

[jacob erin-cilberto]

I like your review better than the poem itself.
Thank you, Anita,
j.

[Anita Frader]

Pleasure, Jacob. :)

[Julie McCarthy (juliesp..]

Hollywood the weirdwood I call it
When I was growing up and a teen and a young mother and older mother loved all the movies
I’ve woken up to the evil in Hollywood now
They are not on any pedestal for me now

A great write loved it Jacob

[jacob erin-cilberto]

Yes, lots of evil, misfortune, and so many actors and actresses were badly mistreated.
Pedestals break and actors fall.
thanks, Julie,
j.

[Julie McCarthy (juliespenhere)]

Yes they do and the truth comes out in end

[NormaZ]

Ah, the sting of rejection, we as poets know how that feels. I love this poem for the strong language, cutting, slices, sad life, morbid, it really evokes the tone of the pressure on these performers. Very powerful!

[jacob erin-cilberto]

Thank you for your kind review, NormaZ.
j.

[Poetic Beauty]

Fame isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. The pressure to be glamorous, beautiful, handsome and the list goes on. The prying eyes always waiting in the shadows for the mess ups and being human. The money that fuels addiction to relieve there extraordinary pressure from all fronts.

It’s a sad tale that many famous and not famous have fallen for…
Too many young and old have become victims to addiction.

[jacob erin-cilberto]

I try to think of all of them as simply human...talented yes, but human.
People just like us and what would we do with all that attention and fame.What would our behavior be?
Thank you, P.B.

[Poetic Beauty]

You are welcome. Being human is messy and we all mess up sometimes but sometimes small. I can’t imagine people watching every move I made

[AYVID N]

I wonder why with too much talent doesn't come enough insensitivity to let the cruel world slide...I mean, a better survival instinct. Most of them snapped like thin glass in the brute hands of life. There are so many beautiful lines here and the sadness of the solitary poet is felt deeply. He wants to be heard and understood, he needs his friends.

[jacob erin-cilberto]

Are poets lonely, even in a crowded room?
I wonder...
thank you for your words, my friend
it is good to see you back at WC....you were missed.
j.

[andrew mitchell]

No one has the time for wannabes these days, breaks are few and far, tv series are axed frequently, and nothing special is breaking out to bring out the best. Always has been the rise and fall scenario, it sells papers but so does fake news. We've reached a plateau no one can jump the hurdle.

[jacob erin-cilberto]

we stopped reaching somewhere along the line...we just did.
thank you, andrew,
j.

[John the Baptist]

Hollywood has a reputation for eating young lives up and then spitting them out. Lana Turner also had the additional burden of Johnny Stompanato, until her daughter removed it. I was thinking more along the lines of Marilyn Monroe and Judy Garland as I read the poem. Fame is a vampire beckoning to the unwary.

[jacob erin-cilberto]

a nasty vampire, indeed.'
Thank you, John,
j.

[Vol]

Erin,
I moved from Nashville, and in my twenty years there, I met dozens of blue-eyed, brown -eyed, red-eyed music wannabes, all with great talent and ambition. the wrote interesting songs in all genres, and performed on local stages with angelic voices, or country voices or rock-n-roll voices just as good as any whose names circled the globe... So much talent, so much waste. My wife owned a Bridal/formal shop, and just before she hit, Taylor Swift came in to shop. Kimberly gifted her a gown of some sort and that is the closest we ever came to someone who made it. In a perfect world, everyone would be allowed to come to a full realization of their talents...
Vol

[jacob erin-cilberto]

Pretty cool about Taylor Swift...and she seems to be a really nice person and good to her fans.
read morePretty cool about Taylor Swift...and she seems to be a really nice person and good to her fans.
Thank you for sharing.
j.

[Thomas W Case]

Powerful work. You nailed this one.

[jacob erin-cilberto]

Thanks Thomas.
j.