James Dean is Dead - Marley Greiner
James Dean is dead
Crumpled in his white Porsche Spyder
on Rt 466 somewhere in Southern California
the morning paper reports.
My babysitter ritualistically carries
her scrapbooks to bed.
When her brother dies in the Tonkin Gulf
his last thought is of her
clutching those scrapbooks
tucking them under her pillow.
Girls in Topeka, Sioux Falls, Oswego, and Norfolk
hold midnight pajamaed séances
spelling out messages on Ouija boards.
Others say he is not dead
that he is irrevocably bone-mangled, crippled
speechless in a rest home in Monterey
where he silently watches rough green waves
and counts swooping seagulls.
James Dean is dead.
His Technicolor pictures hang on my bedroom wall.
A black and white centerfold from Seventeen
is taped to the inside of my closet door.
He looks foreign--French---ruffled hair.
Morbid. My mother tears it down when I am at school
“Ten year-olds don't understand death," shes says.
James Dean is buried in Fairmont, Indiana.
Thousands gather where Aunt Ortense and Uncle Marcus grieve.
Elizabeth Taylor weeps diamond tears.
Pier Angeli, mourns silently her never-never child
coldly capitulates to her mother
and marches down her shotgun aisle.
Natalie Wood carries a snapshot of his grave
until she floats dreamily in Pacific waves.
She and Pier and my babysitter follow.
His tombstone, is chipped away by loving fingers
loving boys and girls, greasers, punks, queers, bikers, rockers
who want a part of him,
He is memory.
Originally published by The Columbus Free Press, p. 3, June 1986
Marley Greiner's poems have appeared in Pudding, Pig Iron Press, the Columbus Free Press, the Columbus Dispatch, and, most recently Tangled Locks Journal, Harrow House Journal, several Local Gems anthologies, Mystery Twistery, Sci-Fi Stir Fry, Exciting Writing, and Summer Stunner anthologies. This summer 3 poems will be featured in Quark Press' Gremlin Grimoire. Marley is a seasoned troublemaker and old Wobbly. She holds an MA and is ABD (all but dissertation) in American History from the Ohio State University with an emphasis on organized crime, sex work, and film. After decades in Canton and Columbus, Ohio, she now lives in Corpus Christi, Texas, where she is active in the poetry scene.
