Poem
in January
March, the fierce!
like a wind of garters
its calm kept secret, as if eaten!
and sipped at the source tainted, taut.
Vagrants, crushed by such effulgence,
wrap their mild twigs and bruises in straws
and touch themselves tightly, like buttered bees,
for the sun is cold, there, as an eyeglass
for the sake of infantile suns and their railing
and storming at the deplorably pale cheeks
and the hemlocks not yet hung up.
Do we live in old, sane, sensible cries?
The guards stand up and down like a waltz
and its strains are stolen by fauns
with their wounded feet nevertheless dashing
away through the woods, for the iris! for autumn!
Oh pure blue of a footstep, have you stolen
March? and, with your cupiditous baton
struck agog? do you feel that you have, blue?
Ah, March! you have not decided whom you train.
Or what traitors are waiting for you to be born,
oh March! or what it will mean in terms of diet.
Take my clear big eyes into your heart, and then
pump my clear big eyes through your bloodstream, and!
stick my clear big eyes on your feet, it is cold,
I am all over snowshoes and turning round
and round. There’s a trail of blood through
the wood and a few shreds of faun-colored hair.
I am troubled as I salute the crocus.
There shall be no more reclining on the powdered roads,
your veins are using up the redness of the world.
Frank O'Hara
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A
True Account of Talking with the Sun at Fire Island
The Sun woke me this
morning loud
and clear, saying "Hey! I’ve been
trying to wake you up for fifteen
minutes. Don’t be so rude, you are
only the second poet I’ve ever chosen
to speak to personally
so why aren’t you more attentive? If I could
burn you through the window I would
to wake you up. I can’t hang around here all day."
"Sorry, Sun, I stayed up late last night talking to Hal."
"When I woke up Mayakovsky he was
a lot more prompt" the Sun said
petulantly. "Most people are up
already waiting to see if I’m going
to put in an appearance."
I tried to apologize "I missed you yesterday."
"That’s better" he said. "I didn’t
know you’d come out." "You may be
wondering why I’ve come so close?"
"Yes" I said beginning to feel hot
wondering if maybe he wasn’t burning me anyway.
"Frankly I wanted to tell you
I like your poetry. I see a lot
on my rounds and you’re okay. You may
not be the greatest thing on earth, but
you’re different. Now, I’ve heard some
say you’re crazy, they being excessively
calm themselves to my mind, and other
crazy poets think that you’re a boring
reactionary. Not me.
Just keep on
like I do and pay no attention. You’ll
find that people always will complain
about the atmosphere, either too hot
or cold too bright or too dark, days
too short or too long.
If you don’t appear
at all one day they think you’re lazy
or dead. Just keep right on, I like it.
And don’t worry about your lineage
poetic or natural. The Sun shines on
the jungle, you know, on the tundra
the sea, the ghetto. Wherever you were
I knew it and saw you moving. I was waiting
for you to get to work.
And now that you
are making your own days, so to speak,
even if no one reads but me
you won’t be depressed. Not
everyone can look up, even at me. It hurts their eyes."
"Oh Sun, I’m so grateful to you!"
"Thanks and remember I’m watching. It’s
easier for me to speak to you out
here. I don’t have to slide down
between buildings to get your ear.
I know you love Manhattan, but
you ought to look up more often.
And always embrace things, people earth
sky stars, as I do, freely and with
the appropriate sense of space. That
is your inclination, known in the heavens
and you should follow it to hell, if
necessary, which I doubt.
Maybe we’ll speak again in Africa, of which I too
am specially fond. Go back to sleep now
Frank, and I may leave a tiny poem
in that brain of yours as my farewell."
"Sun, don’t go!" I was awake
at last. "No, go I must, they’re calling me."
"Who are they?"
Rising he said "Some
day you’ll know. They’re calling to you
too." Darkly he rose, and then I slept.
Frank O'Hara
Now
That I am In Madrid I Can Think
I think of you
and the continents brilliant and arid
and the slender heart you are sharing my share of with the American
air
as the lungs I have felt sonorously subside slowly greet each morning
and your brown lashes flutter revealing two perfect dawns colored by
New York
see a vast bridge stetching to the humbled outskirts with only you
Standing on the edge of the purple like an only tree
and in Toledo the olive groves' soft blue look at the hills with silver
like glasses like and old ladies hair
It's well known that God and I don't get along together
It's just a view of the brass works for me, I don't care about the Moors
seen through you the great works of death, you are greater
you are smiling, you are emptying the world so we can be alone.
Frank O'Hara
My
Heart
I 'm not going to
cry all the time
nor shall I laugh all the time
I don't prefer one "strain" to another.
I'd have the immediacy of a bad movie,
not just a sleeper, but also the big,
overproduced first-run kind. I want to be
at least as alive as the vulgar. And if
some aficionado of my mess says " That's
not like Frank! , all to the good! I
don't wear brown and grey suits all the time,
do I? NO. I wear workshirts to the opera,
often. I want my feet to be bare,
I want my face to be shaven, and my heart-
you can't plan on my heart, but
the better part of it like my poetry, is open.
Frank O'Hara
Song
Is it dirty
does it look dirty
that's what you think of in the city
does it just seem dirty
That's what you think of in the city
you don't refuse to breath do you
someone comes along with a very bad character
he seemsattractive. is he really.yes.very
he's attractive as his character is bad.is it.yes
that's what you think of in the city
run your fingers along your no-moss mind
that's not a thought that's soot
and you take a lot of dirt off someone
is the character less bad.no. it improves constantly
you don't refuse to breath do you
Frank O'Hara
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Having
A Coke With You
is even more fun
than going top San Sebastain, Irun, Hendaye, Biarritz, Bayonne
or being sick to my stomach on the Travesera de Gracia in Barcelona
partly because in your orange shirt you look like a better happier St.
Sebastian
partly because of my love for you, partly because of your love for yoghurt
partly because of the fluoresent orange tulips around the birches
partly because of the secrecy our smiles take on before people and statuary
 it
is hard to believe when I'm with you that there can be anything as still
as solemn as unpleasently definitive as statuary when right in front
of it
in the warm New York 4 o'clock light we are drifting back and forth
between each other like a tree breathing through its spectacles
and the portrait
show seems to have no faces in it at all, just paint
you suddenly wonder why in the world anyone ever did them I look
at you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in the
world
except possibly for the "Polish Rider" occasionally and anyway
it's in the Frick
which thank heavens you haven't gone to yet so we can go together the
first time
and the fact that you move so beautifully more or less takes care of
Futurism
just as at home I never think of the "Nude Descending a Staircase"
or
at a rehearsal a single drawing of Leonardo or Michaelangleo that used
to wow me
and what good does all the research of the impressionists do them
when they never got the right person to stand near the tree when the
sun sank
or for that matter Marino Marini when he didn't pick the rider as carefully
as the horse
it seems they were
all cheated of some marvelous experience
which is not going to go wasted on me which is why I am telling you
about it
Frank O'Hara
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