edited by Garrett Caples & Julien Poirier
for Frank O' Hara
I
The lights are out
The cats are hungry
The room is full of gangsters
II
The dishes are dirty
The icebox is empty
I dream of celery and a compass
III
The roof is upstairs
The window next door
A guitar in the shower
IV
The hours disappear in my room
Where is my blue pistol
The door-god is knocking
F R A N K O' H AR A
My heart wears a pair
Of shoes that once belonged
To a young poet.
Whose blood was as fresh
As water.
Whose seatbelt was the hair
Of beautiful women.
Who slept in a thousand dreams
Made of beds.
Who had a friend whose heart
Was a kite tied to a string.
Who was eaten by a taxi
Lost on a beach of fire
My dear friend still comes to me
After all these years.
To die once again and to stare
At the holes in my heart.
4.19.98
O K L A H O M A A M E R I C A
The fathers of America
have ruined the mountains
The mothers of America
have dried the river beds
The children of America
are dying at play
Our forefathers watch our
neonates mouse the words of freedom
Worms vagrant fallopian worms
Are birds freedom?
Are children sheep?
This is the year of the bullet
Of white professional homework
Of Nagasaki fertilizer
Of cheap fuel oil
Of tender SS movies
This is oncotic Americana
This is why fish will fly to heaven
We are the widow of our dreams
We are shrinking in their skin
We are attached to their wisdom
Look at the thermos colored sky
Fame flying on TV
They wash their hands in our womb
Where the dead know the stars
Are sleeping children
Like the procession of equinox
Condensing our fate
We are the Furies of entropy
We have killed
A hundred million
Human trees this century
Who will wear their clothes?
Death is as round as an apple
Holding a child ever so gently
They no longer see the kangaroo
They cannot touch
The innocent mirror
With their wet hands
The tears are drowning
In their sand pails
Like lyrical lips
The mothers will never be
The sun on their faces
O my beloved country
Where is the antelope of love?
Why does the earth
Turn away from the sun?
Why are the children covered
With concrete
Rain
And neglected
Specks of freedom?
4.25.95
___________________
F R A N K L I M A
Incidents of Travel in Poetry
City Lights Books 2015
