they pulled my hair at charm school.

they stole my guestbook during rolecall.

chruch street & that small cofee shop we liked + MAY 21. 2003 = mr. n.m.

+

dear boy ,

am wondering if all your belongings are packed up, if you are crossing days off, if you are e x c i t e d. am hoping you will send me letters from your new address. that you will not forget me & the three years in the tiny apartment in the center of noho. and diego the black cat & diego the black cat's circus tricks. came upon this poem the other day and it reminded me of you. there is something very N. MORRA about it, the language, as well as the images presented: i can see you walking around providence, keeping notes in your head, remembering women. until then,

THE DAY LADY DIED

It is 12:20 in New York a Friday

three days after Bastille day, yes

it is 1959 and I go get a shoeshine

because I will get off the 4:19 in Easthampton

at 7:15 and then go straight to dinner

and I don�t know the people who will feed me

I walk up the muggy street beginning to sun

and have a hamburger and a malted and buy

an ugly NEW WORLD WRITING to see what the poets

in Ghana are doing these days.

I go on to the bank

and Miss Stillwagon (first name Linda I once heard)

doesn�t even look up my balance for once in her life

and in the GOLDEN GRIFFIN i get a little Verlaine

for Patsy with drawings by Bonnard although I do

think of Hesiod, trans. Richmond Lattimore or

Brendan Behan�s new play or LE BALCON or LES NEGRES

of Genet, but I don�t, I stick with Verlaine

after practically going to sleep with quandariness

and for Mike I just stroll into the PARK LANE

Liquor Store and ask for a bottle of Strega and

then I go back where I came from to 6th Avenue

and the tobacconist in the Ziegfeld Theatere and

casually ask for a carton of Gauloises and a carton

of Picayunes, and a NEW YORK POST with her face on it

and I am sweating a lot by now and thinking of

leaning on the john door in the 5 SPOT

while she whispered a song along the keyboard

to Mal Waldron and everyone and I stopped breathing

Frank O'Hara, 1959

0 comments so far

prev/next class notes, file of pom-pom

ghosts!