Almanac Poetry: Hooray for Hollywood

[The Hollywood Sign. Source: Wikimedia Commons.]
Hooray for Hollywood
High in the Hollywood Hills,
the cadaverous and the mummified
– B-Grade movie actors
of the sixties,
television sex symbols
of the seventies and eighties
– haunt minor mansions
among braces of toy Poodles,
Pomeranians, Shih Tzu,
summoning illegal Mexican
waiting staff, pool cleaners,
occasional semi-literate
gym-bodied young men or women
who want to be in pictures.
These stars of decades past
leave their houses rarely,
to be the Marshal of their hometown fair
in small Mid-Western or Southern towns,
sitting on a throne
in the lead float of a street parade,
waving at happy people,
some of whom remember who they were
– or else they go to conventions,
signing memorabilia,
people’s arms (and sometimes breasts)
in exchange for clutches
of dirty green bills.
(Acknowledgements: first appeared in Sudo journal, 2022; then in Please Feed the Macaws…I’m Feeling Too Indolent, Ginninderra Press, 2023.)
Read more from Kevin Densley HERE
Kevin Densley’s latest poetry collection, Please Feed the Macaws…I’m Feeling Too Indolent, is available HERE
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About
Kevin Densley is a graduate of both Deakin University and The University of Melbourne. He has taught writing and literature in numerous Victorian universities and TAFES. He is a poet and writer-in-general. His fifth book-length poetry collection, Please Feed the Macaws ... I'm Feeling Too Indolent, was published in late 2023 by Ginninderra Press. He is also the co-author of ten play collections for young people, as well as a multi Green Room Award nominated play, Last Chance Gas, published by Currency Press. Other writing includes screenplays for educational films.

Yep, KD, the thee big LA neighbourhoods are Beverly Hills, Brentwood and Bel Air.
We stayed in Brentwood last time in LA to be close to the J. Paul Getty museum. Amazing what billionaires collect.
In one room he had a collection of medieval armour, and in another room especially fixed with dim lighting Marie Antoinette’s collection of exotic, Asian perfumes.
He’d apparently taken great delight in outbidding fellow billionaires for an enormous portrait of an 18th century French aristocrat. He still had his head on because it was painted a few years before the 1789 Revolution.
And yes a B grade out-of-work actor chauffeured ourselves and other hotel guests from our lodgings to the museum. It was only a few blocks — the hotel had a strict policy of ‘No Tipping’ emblazoned on signs all over the 17 floors — so we couldn’t help him out financially..
However in the grounds of the Getty museum my wife did notice an actress a fair bit above the B grade status. It was Britain’s Anna Chancellor and we chatted to her in the elevator ride to the upstairs museum galleries.
.
Thank you, Richard, for your response. Fascinating stuff – I’m pleased my poem evoked such interesting memories.