Day 618 of the daily poems. 13 August 2024. Feargal Sharkey’s 66th birthday, singer, musician, first CEO (2008) of UK Music, great ambassador for the health of Britain’s rivers. I wonder if he ever sang “Cry me a river” (I know, I know, Julie London) but it would be so appropriate. Our poet today, Fiona Clark, finds Marilyn Monroe and Ella Fitzgerald crying themselves a river.
[From] Singing the Blues
Marilyn Monroe traded her celebrity presence each night in Hollywood’s Mocambo nightclub in exchange for the nightclub’s employment as entertainer, of Ella Fitzgerald, formerly barred for her ‘unglamorous’ appearance. Marilyn then also insisted on Ella’s right as a Black woman to enter through the club’s front door. They became good friends.
Marilyn Monroe, Ella Fitzgerald
La Blanche, La Noire, together,
rocking the Mocambo nightclub.
White, black and scarlet,
winking at the world’s errors
with glossy red laughter.
Smoky saxophone,
bewitching blues piano,
wring out their plangent tones
speaking of past sorrows:
white girl in the grip of groping hands,
Black girl, beaten in a cellar.
Moonlight, black velvet shadow,
defiant weeping notes,
they cry themselves a river.
Growing together
cherry-blossom tree and baobab tree,
roots and branches interlaced forever.
Fiona Clark