(no subject)

[lilpheebs6.livejournal.com]

Frank O'Hara, "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'm
telling you about it.

Comments

[tetsufu.livejournal.com]

Reading this, of the "solemn" "unpleasantly definitive...statuary" and of references to the art world in general, I'm reminded of Joseph Cornell, whose personality, while probably a polar opposite to that of O'Hara, shared the inclinations of flaneur and collector, and was at least once interviewed by John Ashbery.

Cornell made films which included statues of angels.

I also love the shear artifice and yet subtle beauty of the image of "the fluorescent orange tulips around the birches".

Thanks for this. Perfect for April 1st

lovelovelovelovelovelovelove

[fiftyfour.livejournal.com]

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

[fiftyfour.livejournal.com]

also i really love the enjambment and syntax. thank you for posting this poem. frank o'hara poems always make me smile.

this one always makes me happy

[a-zoetrope.livejournal.com]

wonderful~!

[shibaiko.livejournal.com]

my absolute favorite poem. thank you.

[gotmusikk.livejournal.com]

I love this!!

Love isnt perfect, its quirky, and yet it transcends. for me, it captures it, somehow. you think?