And don't worry about your lineage poetic or natural. Frank O'Hara More Quotes by Frank O'Hara More Quotes From Frank O'Hara O my enormous piano, you are not like being outdoors Frank O'Hara enormouspiano oh god it’s wonderful to get out of bed and drink too much coffee and smoke too many cigarettes and love you so much Frank O'Hara bedcoffeelove-you I am the least difficult of men. All I want is boundless love. Frank O'Hara wantinspiringmen Now I am quietly waiting for the catastrophe of my personality to seem beautiful again, and interesting, and modern. Frank O'Hara personalitybeautifulinteresting It may be that poetry makes life's nebulous events tangible to me and restores their detail; or conversely, that poetry brings forth the intangible quality of incidents which are all too concrete and circumstantial. Or each on specific occasions, or both all the time. Frank O'Hara intangible-qualitydetailsevents the only truth is face to face, the poem whose words become your Frank O'Hara black-and-whitefightingtruth I have, for my own projected works and ideas, only the silliest and dewiest of hopes; no matter what, I am romantic enough or sentimental enough to wish to contribute something to life's fabric, to the world's beauty.... [S]imply to live does not justify existence, for life is a mere gesture on the surface of the earth, and death a return to that from which we had never been wholly separated; but oh to leave a trace, no matter how faint, of that brief gesture! For someone, some day, may find it beautiful! Frank O'Hara wishbeautifulideas Grace / to be born and live as variously as possible Frank O'Hara borngrace And always embrace things, people earth sky stars, as I do, freely and with the appropriate sense of space. Frank O'Hara spacestarssky Oh! kangaroos, sequins, chocolate sodas! / You really are beautiful! Pearls, / harmonicas, jujubes, aspirins! Frank O'Hara aspirinchocolatebeautiful I don't ... like rhythm, assonance, all that stuff. You just go on your nerve. If someone's chasing you down the street with a knife you just run, you don't turn around and shout, 'Give it up! I was a track star for Mineola Prep.' Frank O'Hara knivesstarsrunning The poem is at last between two persons instead of two pages. In all modesty, I confess that it may be the death of literature as we know it. Frank O'Hara literaturemaytwo I embraced a cloud but when I soared it rained. Frank O'Hara clouds I loved her fright, which was against me into the air! and the diamond white of her forelock which seemed to smart with thoughts as my heart smarted with life! and she'd toss her head with the pain and paw the air and champ the bit, as if I were Endymion and she, moon-like, hated to love me. Frank O'Hara smartpainheart it is hard to believe when I’m with you that there can be anything as still as solemn as unpleasantly definitive as statuary when right in front of it in the warm New York 4 o’clock light we are drifting back and forth between each other like a tree breathing through its spectacles Frank O'Hara lightnew-yorkbelieve A man was the cause of it all. An unarmed man with a weapon. Frank O'Hara causesweaponsmen Poem (Lana Turner has collapsed!) Lana Turner has collapsed! I was trotting along and suddenly it started raining and snowing and you said it was hailing but hailing hits you on the head hard so it was really snowing and raining and I was in such a hurry to meet you but the traffic was acting exactly like the sky and suddenly I see a headline LANA TURNER HAS COLLAPSED! there is no snow in Hollywood there is no rain in California I have been to lots of parties and acted perfectly disgraceful but I never actually collapsed oh Lana Turner we love you get up Frank O'Hara partyrainlove-you You just go on your nerve. Frank O'Hara nervesgoes-on I wouldn’t want to be faster or greener than now if you were with me O you were the best of all my days! Frank O'Hara greenerfasterwant If I am ever to find these trees meaningful I must have you by the hand. As it is, they stretch dusty fingers into an obscure sky, and the snow looks up like a face dirtied with tears. Should I cry out and see what happens? There could only be a stranger wandering in this landscape, cold, unfortunate, himself frozen fast in wintry eyes. Frank O'Hara eyemeaningfulhands
