April 23, 2009: A Step Away From Them, Frank O'Hara
A Step Away From Them
Frank O’Hara
It’s my lunch hour, so I go
for a walk among the hum-colored
cabs. First, down the sidewalk
where laborers feed their dirty
glistening torsos sandwiches
and Coca-Cola, with yellow helmets
on. They protect them from falling
bricks, I guess. Then onto the
avenue where skirts are flipping
above heels and blow up over
grates. The sun is hot, but the
cabs stir up the air. I look
at bargains in wristwatches. There
are cats playing in sawdust.
On
to Times Square, where the sign
blows smoke over my head, and higher
the waterfall pours lightly. A
Negro stands in a doorway with a
toothpick, languorously agitating
A blonde chorus girl clicks: he
smiles and rubs his chin. Everything
suddenly honks: it is 12:40 of
a Thursday.
Neon in daylight is a
great pleasure, as Edwin Denby would
write, as are light bulbs in daylight.
I stop for a cheeseburger at JULIET’S
CORNER. Giulietta Maina, wife of
Federico Fellini, é bell’ attrice.
And chocolate malted. A lady in
foxes on such a day puts her poodle
in a cab.
There are several Puerto
Ricans on the avenue today, which
makes it beautiful and warm. First
Bunny died, then John Latouche,
then Jackson Pollock. But is the
earth as full of life was full, of them?
And one has eaten and one walks,
past the magazines with nudes
and the posters for BULLFIGHT and
the Manhattan Storage Warehouse,
which they’ll soon tear down. I
used to think they had the Armory
Show there.
A glass of papaya juice
and back to work. My heart is in my
pocket, it is Poems by Pierre Reverdy.
[I love the cacophanous jumble of this kind of O’Hara poem: how the specifics of time and place and pop culture make it feel so immediate, and the sense of movement, things appearing as O’Hara walks, kind of like Leopold Bloom walking through Dublin in Ulysses. It just feels so alive. More talk about this poem here.
Read Frank, live better: Animals, Steps, Gamin, For Grace, After A Party]
A year ago today: Entry, Lisa Sewell
Two years ago: Meanwhile, Richard Siken
Three years ago: Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note, Amiri Baraka
Four years ago: Holy Sonnet XIV, John Donne
