My Heart by Frank O'Hara

My Heart
by 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.

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[sweens1026]

Your reading could be a little drier (dryer? more dry?)... in my opinion. The way O'Hara reads "Having a coke with you", you get the feeling it's not total bullshit the way poetry can seem like bullshit sometimes.

[JakeDonaghue]

i think the reading should be more faster and energetic. you're not reading sylvia plath, you know...

[Cyrel89]

beautiful

[jpmickey15]

that was great

[sweens1026]

@teamcrumb I agree. I didn't mean sarcastic. Thanks -- you put it better than I did.

[teamcrumb]

@sweens1026 frank o hara was not being dry or droll when he read any of his stuff. its from the heart and he is as interested in language as any of poet, he just doesn't use intellectualisms for the sake of them. he saw the poem in the day he had lived, and wrote about it in that daily tone. and chose not to put his words into a more powerful or divisive format, i guess he knew full well not deluding yourself is partly all a poet owes his or her self to write well

[teamcrumb]

@JakeDonaghue its just fine as it is, conversational.

conversational is not morose or maudlin. and plenty of sylvia's poems are happy as an eye should be. personally i'm glad the reader doesn't perform it

[DanLackey]

Good poem: good reading.

[qbone20]

@TheGreatTrashy lol Cool

[TheGreatTrashy]

@qbone20 i love frank, too!