My Heart by Frank O’Hara
Home, finally. Taking a deep breath. Settling in my bed. Good night.
My Heart
Frank O’HaraI’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.
Edel
nice!!! its real and not faked… i like it.
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.