Frank O'Hara:

Death

1

If half of me is skewered

by grey crested birds

in the middle of the vines of my promise

and the very fact that I'm a poet

suffers my eyes

to be filled with vermillion tears,

2

how much greater danger

from occasion and pain is my vitality

yielding, like a tree on fire!-

for every day is another view

of the tentative past

grown secure in its foundry of shimmering

that's not even historical; it's just me.

3

And the other half

of me where I master the root

of my everyday idiosyncrasy

and fit my ribs like a glove,

4

is that me who accepts betrayal

in the abstract as if it were insight?

and draws it knuckles

across the much-lined eyes

in the most knowing manner of our time?

5

The wind that smiles through the wires

isn't vague enough for an assertion

of a personal nature, it's not for me,

6

I'm not dead. Nothing remains, let alone "to be said,"

except that when I fall backwards

I am trying something new and shall succeed, as in the past.

[I Kiss Your Cup]

I kiss your cup

which will not be used again

till you come back

Loud as a swan's transport

is your voice

amplified by the distance in your eyes

Snow of thought

I am on my back to you

and my lids twitch

I dreamt

that I was mysteriously murdered

with narcotics

And the dust

that makes a Rubens out of you

makes me a serpent

A Hill

Yes, it's disgusting

when you lose

control, but my

wilderness is love

of a kind, no?

And the purity

of my confusion is

there, it's poetry

in love with you

along with me,

both of us love you

in the same "My!"

Yes, but don't be

scared; poetry

is intangible and

there's no purity

in me

outside of love,

which you can easily wreck

and I can lose.

Clouds pass in

my notorious eye

but you, through

all, I see.

hidden sweethearts parade

imagine! The Hidden Sweethearts Parade
empty-handed joyful youthful souls
expressing death's decay in whimsical promenades
with absolute absence of physical roles
imagine, in thanks I prayed


prostrate spirits sponge the orbital dew
hanging gently out of the way
languishing the partition of only two
who, euphorically hidden inside the parade
never touch what they never knew


imagine, paradisaic sweethearts ever betrayed
whether by purpose or providence
they apperceived and elatedly obeyed
only through perfect sadness could they commence
always apart in the hidden parade

picnic

a circadian picnic begins
packed with mud
vitreous feelings
and broken violins


the objective is muddy
if it exists
and the objective twists
becoming a circadian study


habitual hiatuses candle waxy heat
fugitive dreams dream down screaming streets
whirling thunder flashes prosaic fire
literal hunger lacks desire


earth - and its humanity - 
and its reality - and its birth
is a quartz reality with quartz perceptions
equaling imaginary imaginations
(which may - or may not - work
in circadian picnics)


burnt rice sticks to the pan burnt
life sticks to life
herons, however, hear the call
primal erudition reduces earthly erosion


circadian balance found in waking
reveals the yellowness of life!
and the blending blueness of dreams
your lipstick-less lips remind me of life
and the muddy birds cock their heads
to me and disappear


the picnic on the balcony was enough
to rumble my heart and quiver my stomach
it was not comfortable
your white lips spoke, but never moved
ahoy said my stomach
and ahoy said reality
my heart is hoodwinked again
my heart is kin to bursting corporeal rythms

graveflowers

grave flowers wait silently seeminglyfor

nothing, not to say that they are fornothing,

not to say that they are not doing just whatthey

are meant to be doing (humanperspective),

with questions: they are life for thedead

or a reminder of life for the living (whichseems

somewhat unnecessary when doinganything

but looking at them) or a gift of life for thedead

(which seems superstitious and belowmoderns)

they areunusually

like and unlike pills - whose wait, at least, is farmore

active. they are found, rattled, swishedswallowed,

dropped on a variety of floors that wouldsurely

envy make grave flowers which leadsto

bouncing burrowing ricocheting scootingsliding

etc often into andor under unknownsurfaces -

which here - as well as random(?)colors -

though by different design, reminds mespecifically

of graveflowers

NOTE FROM ST. FRANCIS

by Joseph Ceravolo

In the world today
there is
no world so attached as I am
to worlds.
All our hairyness
all our coarseness.
There is no texture in this
warmth I feel about
the creatures today.
We are gunning for extinction.
The sky is still bright
and all the animals running
for prehistoric sounds
believable in the passionate night.

Conversation

she calls me Alaska
she doesn't know what she's talking about
she calls me Tennessee
I am from Tennessee
she calls me a star
...What?
Not that kind. Like in space -
...she doesn't know what she's talking about
- infinitely isolated -
there are millions of stars in a glance of space
- eternally undiscovered.
Exactly.
You don't know anything.
She doesn't know what she's talking about.

reverberating

the knocking on my door
is mercilessly faster than
the pulse I hear - or feel -
through my new blue earplugs
molding my ear holes but
I'm convinced that it is
my pulse - I can't hear
which is the worse worry
the ceaseless red rapping
on my reverberating wooden
door or a white lightning
pulse rate hiccuping from
my heart - if I steal the sleep
from either, I'll never wake up

unfathomable love

unfathomable love

like

a

struggling, perfect

tree

at

the depths of the ocean

filtering

salt

pierced through

layers

upon

layers of earth by

unfathomable

light

Reality, Regardless of Red Wet Rabbit Lipstick

it can take its dirt and swim in it
running in the winter is just as real
as swimming in the summer is just
as real as swimming in dirt and


running like a red wet rabbit in water
what no one understands is simply that
no one understands! easy. reality
or - splashing it with dirt - is helpful


ketchup doesn't eat French fries
(has it ever been seen?) dry,
weary eyes, watching clocks,
trying to take time on vacation


reality is what you make reality
regardless of red wet rabbit
vacations, reality is applied red
lipstick, but more secretive


repetitious usage of the word
"reality" is practically absurd

Memories of the Morning, New Jersey

The young girl in a note to me "You're so sweet
you're a girl." We both knew it was a complement.


The man opened the door for me
but I continued to the second door,
which I always use and I hoped
that he did not take it personally.


Before all of this
I was at my brother's two story home
It must have been Thanksgiving
and it was Morning
He called his wife downstairs
and invited her outside to see the
wild deer and horses running together
Two or three of the deer were completely
spring green and healthy, and one horse was
an indescribable red and it was vibrant
I see this from inside of the house
looking out of the window,
like a movie.


My last memory being at the supermarket
where I spent nearly a week's wages
and wearing my faded canary yellow New
Jersey shirt ('Casa Comida' in green,
'Mexican Restaurant
Wall, N.J.'
in black and supporting a colorful
parrot of red, orange, and blue, all
Mexican colors, but with NJ style)
The man with round, black sunglasses
in the next aisle, closer to the door,
asked if I was from Jersey, then asked if 
I had just visited, then said I should go
and that it was nothing like that
reality TV show. His wife agreed,
said something, and then they left.
My cashier said something about it
(NJ) being a giant landfill, but I think
that was meant to be perceived
as a joke. But I did not really 
perceive it as anything at all.


As far as the note, I cannot remember
what kind of note it was, or what the
meaning of it was, only the end. Whether
it was hand-written, or typed, or long or short,
all I remember is "You're so sweet
you're a girl." And we were both very happy.