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Mortifications and Lies (forthcoming)   Listen to the Poet Read |
I am sitting in a room high above the others reading Frank O'Hara while the electric fan sweeps over my body all I can think of is a lover I once had who also owned a book like this O'Hara in a white cover imported from America there was always something I didn't know I was sad even when I loved him and he me I had to run away and when he asked I gave a stupid poem in answer and it wasn't like O'Hara at all because. because I don't know but it wasn't America either and now we have children both of us and don't see each other don't write to each other he sits a cool office too and people come to him with questions he answers them and looks out the window and never recovers from love affairs that's the way it is and I try to hide from the landscape even in this high room it comes up to meet me I fight it off with a camera try to put it away with a gesture it doesn't work the trees are still there when I look and suddenly I know why I like O'Hara trees love him but he is scared of them always wants civilisation that's his problem even my old lover liked it civilisation that is before me is a long poem I'm trying to finish it's about the country and it will not lie flat on the page and it rocks up and fetches me when I don't want to be fetched and then the last of summer is fading in the curtains there is a red tinge and the sky will be turning dark on us in the winter again this dirt is like an old lover too you have affection but you can't shake it off for us there was no end I went away and drove the car around the highway singing old ridiculous songs until the sting was burnished off my heart and I could come back to the city that is
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Biography | Poetry | Essay: Poetics /Kinetics | Résumé | Copyright |
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