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My Heart by Frank O’Hara

Home, finally. Taking a deep breath. Settling in my bed. Good night.

My Heart
Frank O’Hara

I’m not going to cry all the time
nor 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, but
the better part of it, my poetry, is open.

This is from The Selected Poems of Frank O’Hara, edited by Donald Allen, published by Vintage Books, 1974.

Comments (2)

  • Edel

    nice!!! its real and not faked… i like it.

    reply
  • Saarah

    I Love the realness of O’Hara’s poetry, it allows me to connect to his poems in such an everyday, real, ordinary way that I don’t find in anyone else’s poetry.

    reply

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