Frank O'Hara

“willow trees, willow trees they remind me of DesdemonaI'm so damned literaryand at the same time the waters rushing past remindme of nothing”

“life perpetuated in parti-colored loves and beautiful lies all in different languages.”

“Now I am quietly waiting forthe catastrophe of my personalityto seem beautiful again,and interesting, and modern.The country is grey andbrown and white in trees,snows and skies of laughteralways diminishing, less funnynot just darker, not just grey.It may be the coldest day ofthe year, what does he think ofthat? I mean, what do I? And if I do,perhaps I am myself again.”

“ Andalways embrace things, people earthsky stars, as I do, freely and withthe appropriate sense of space. ”

“I wonder if the course of narcissism through the ages would have been any different had Narcissus first peered into a cesspool. He probably did.”

“The stars blink like a hairnet that was dropped / on a seat and now it is lying in the alley behind / the theatre where my play is echoed by dying voices.”

“One need never leave the confines of New York to get all the greenery one wishes--I can't even enjoy a blade of grass unless I know there's a subway handy, or a record store or some other sign that people do not totally regret life.”

“O my enormous piano, you are not like being outdoors”

“I have, for my own projected works and ideas, only the silliest and dewiest of hopes; no matter what, I am romantic enough or sentimental enough to wish to contribute something to life’s fabric, to the world’s beauty.... [S]imply to live does not justify existence, for life is a mere gesture on the surface of the earth, and death a return to that from which we had never been wholly separated; but oh to leave a trace, no matter how faint, of that brief gesture! For someone, some day, may find it beautiful!”

“and the portrait show seems to have no faces in it at all, just paintyou suddenly wonder why in the world anyone ever did themI lookat you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in the worldexcept possibly for the Polish Rider occasionally and anyway it’s in the Frickwhich thank heavens you haven’t gone to yet so we can go together the first time”

“Too many poets act like a middle-aged mother trying to get her kids to eat too much cooked meat, and potatoes with drippings (tears). I don't give a damn whether they eat or not. Forced feeding leads to excessive thinness (effete). Nobody should experience anything they don't need to, if they don't need poetry bully for them. I like the movies too. And after all, only Whitman and Crane and Williams, of the American poets, are better than the movies.”

“it is hard to believe when I’m with you that there can be anything as stillas solemn as unpleasantly definitive as statuary when right in front of itin the warm New York 4 o’clock light we are drifting back and forthbetween each other like a tree breathing through its spectacles”

“I wouldn’t want to be faster or greener than now if you were with me O you were the best of all my days!”

“oh god it’s wonderful to get out of bed and drink too much coffee and smoke too many cigarettes and love you so much”

“I dislike a great deal of contemporary poetry — all of the past you read is usually quite great — but it is a useful thorn to have in one's side.”

“Poem (Lana Turner has collapsed!) Lana Turner has collapsed!I was trotting along and suddenlyit started raining and snowingand you said it was hailingbut hailing hits you on the headhard so it was really snowing andraining and I was in such a hurryto meet you but the trafficwas acting exactly like the skyand suddenly I see a headlineLANA TURNER HAS COLLAPSED!there is no snow in Hollywoodthere is no rain in CaliforniaI have been to lots of partiesand acted perfectly disgracefulbut I never actually collapsedoh Lana Turner we love you get up”

“It may be the coldest day ofThe year, what does he think ofThat? I mean, what do I? And if I do,Perhaps I am myself again.”

“Grace / to be born and live as variously as possible”

“I don't believe in god, so I don't have to make elaborately sounded structures. ... Pain always produces logic, which is very bad for you. ... As for measure and other technical apparatus, that's just common sense: if you're going to buy a pair of pants you want them to be tight enough so everyone will want to go to bed with you. There's nothing metaphysical about it.”

“A man was the cause of it.An unarmed man with a weapon.”

“I am the least difficult of men. All I want is boundless love.”

“How funny you are today New Yorklike Ginger Rogers in Swingtimeand St. Bridget’s steeple leaning a little to the lefthere I have just jumped out of a bed full of V-days(I got tired of D-days) and blue you there stillaccepts me foolish and freeall I want is a room up thereand you in itand even the traffic halt so thick is a wayfor people to rub up against each otherand when their surgical appliances lockthey stay togetherfor the rest of the day (what a day)I go by to check a slide and I saythat painting’s not so bluewhere’s Lana Turnershe’s out eatingand Garbo’s backstage at the Meteveryone’s taking their coat offso they can show a rib-cage to the rib-watchersand the park’s full of dancers with their tights and shoesin little bagswho are often mistaken for worker-outers at the West Side Ywhy notthe Pittsburgh Pirates shout because they wonand in a sense we’re all winningwe’re alivethe apartment was vacated by a gay couplewho moved to the country for funthey moved a day too sooneven the stabbings are helping the population explosionthough in the wrong countryand all those liars have left the UNthe Seagram Building’s no longer rivalled in interestnot that we need liquor (we just like it)and the little box is out on the sidewalknext to the delicatessenso the old man can sit on it and drink beerand get knocked off it by his wife later in the daywhile the sun is still shiningoh god it’s wonderfulto get out of bedand drink too much coffeeand smoke too many cigarettesand love you so much”

“Having a Coke with Youis even more fun than going to San Sebastian, Irún, Hendaye, Biarritz, Bayonneor being sick to my stomach on the Travesera de Gracia in Barcelonapartly because in your orange shirt you look like a better happier St. Sebastianpartly because of my love for you, partly because of your love for yoghurtpartly because of the fluorescent orange tulips around the birchespartly because of the secrecy our smiles take on before people and statuaryit is hard to believe when I’m with you that there can be anything as stillas solemn as unpleasantly definitive as statuary when right in front of itin the warm New York 4 o’clock light we are drifting back and forthbetween each other like a tree breathing through its spectaclesand the portrait show seems to have no faces in it at all, just paintyou suddenly wonder why in the world anyone ever did themI lookat you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in the worldexcept possibly for the Polish Rider occasionally and anyway it’s in the Frickwhich thank heavens you haven’t gone to yet so we can go together the first timeand the fact that you move so beautifully more or less takes care of Futurismjust as at home I never think of the Nude Descending a Staircase orat a rehearsal a single drawing of Leonardo or Michelangelo that used to wow meand what good does all the research of the Impressionists do themwhen they never got the right person to stand near the tree when the sun sankor for that matter Marino Marini when he didn’t pick the rider as carefullyas the horseit seems they were all cheated of some marvelous experiencewhich is not going to go wasted on me which is why I am telling you about it”

“Leaf! you are so big!How can you change yourcolor, then just fall!As if there were nosuch thing as integrity!”

“I embraced a cloud,but when I soaredit rained.”

“As for measure and other technical apparatus, that’s just common sense: if you’re going to buy a pair of pants you want them to be tight enough so everyone will want to go to bed with you. There’s nothing metaphysical about it. Unless, of course, you flatter yourself into thinking that what you’re experiencing is “yearning.”

“I take thisfor myself, and you take up the thread of my life between your teeth,tin thread and tarnished with abuse,you shall still hearas long as the beast in me maintainsits taciturn power to close my lidsin tears, and my loins move yetin the ennobling pursuit of all the worldsyou have left me alone in, and would bethe dolorous distraction from,while you summon your army of anguisheswhich is a million hooting blood vesselson the eyes and in the earsat that instant before death.”

“I've got to get out of here. I choose a piece of shawl and my dirtiest suntans. I'll be back, I'll re-emerge, defeated, from the valley; you don't want me to go where you go, so I go where you don't want me to.”

“It is easy to be beautiful; it is difficult to appear so.I admire you, beloved, for the trap you've set. It's like a final chapter no one reads because the plot is over.”

“Destroy yourself, if you don't know!”

“Even trees understand me! Good heavens, I lie underthem, too, don't I? I'm just like a pile of leaves.”

“Each time my heart is broken it makes me feel more adventurous (and how the same names keep recurring on that interminable list!), but one of these days there'll be nothing left with which to venture forth.Why should I share you? Why don't you get rid of someone else for a change?”

“If I am ever to find these trees meaningfulI must have you by the hand. As it is, theystretch dusty fingers into an obscure sky,and the snow looks up like a face dirtiedwith tears. Should I cry out and see what happens?There could only be a stranger wanderingin this landscape, cold, unfortunate, himselffrozen fast in wintry eyes.”

“There were occasionallyrifts in the cloud where the faceof a woman appeared, frowning.”

“There is a geography which holdsits hands just so far from the breastand pushes you away, crying so.”

“The stars fellone by one into his eyes and burnt.”

“and I have mastered the speed and strength which is thearmor of the world.”

“I loved her fright, which was against meinto the air! and the diamond white of her forelockwhich seemed to smart with thoughts as my heart smartedwith life!and she'd toss her head with the painand paw the air and champ the bit, as if I were Endymionand she, moon-like, hated to love me.”

“However, I have never clogged myself with the praises of pastoral life, nor with nostalgia for an innocent past of perverted acts in pastures. No. One need never leave the confines of New York to get all the greenery one wishes—I can’t even enjoy a blade of grass unless I know there’s a subway handy, or a record store or some other sign that people do not totally regret life. It is more important to affirm the least sincere; the clouds get enough attention as it is and even they continue to pass. Do they know what they’re missing? Uh huh. ”

“Now I am quietly waiting for the catastrophe of my personality to seem beautiful again, and interesting, and modern.”

“There should be so much more, not of orange, of words, of how terrible orange is and life.”

“I'm becomingthe street.Who are you in love with?me? Straight against the light I cross.”

“And don't worry about your lineagepoetic or natural.”

“You just go on your nerve.”

“Kerouac: You're ruining American poetry, O'Hara.O'Hara: That's more than you ever did for it, Kerouac”

“Oh! kangaroos, sequins, chocolate sodas! / You really are beautiful! Pearls, / harmonicas, jujubes, aspirins!”

“...but it is good to be several floors up in the dead of night wondering whether you are any good or not and the only decision you can make is that you did it...”

“I have been to lots of partiesand acted perfectly disgracefulbut I never actually collapsedoh Lana Turner we love you get up”

“When I die, don't come, I wouldn't want a leafto turn away from the sun -- it loves it there.There's nothing so spiritual about being happybut you can't miss a day of it, because it doesn't last.”

“My HeartI'm not going to cry all the timenor 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 the heart, butthe better part of it, my poetry, is open.”