Having a Coke with you
is even more fun than going to San Sebastian, Irún, 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 unpleasantly 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 Michelangelo 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 marvellous experience
which is not going to go wasted on me which is why I am telling you about it
-Frank O'Hara
* no reason, just feeling mushy. i was a poetry major, and i've always, always loved this one.
3 comments:
i adore frank o'hara. remember when you showed me this poem, and i showed you the one about the buick repairs? there is so much energy in the way he puts words together... it seems like it's going to be a jumble of wordiness, but it's not even close to that.
thanks for posting it. you should tell us about why you're feeling mushy today. i would like to know. :)
lg,
while i don't know Mr. O'Hara's poetry (i've exclusively been obsessed with Mr. Pound's work and have allowed him to gobble up most of my poetry time), i feel compelled to offer you the phrase i most enjoyed from this poem:
"...partly because of the secrecy our smiles take on before people and statuary..."
intimate secrets are the best kind.
persephone,
i totally remember the day we exchanged o'hara poems. it was such a cute moment of synergy (neither one of us knew that the other's poem was by the same author). he is touchingly wordy. i adore his descriptions.
as for why, i'm not sure of the source of my mushy mind, only that it is still with me, days later. i've been suffering a touch of writers' block, and some emotional overwhelm. probably the combination of not being able to articulate myself, and feeling so much at the same time, has me a bit bottled up. i've tried to write a post about 10 separate times and i can't start. not a nice feeling :(.
deity,
i'm glad you enjoyed the line. i agree it is a lovely one. it captures a very particular image for me, of a couple in a park, surrounded by other people, yet intimately alone.
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