Mayakovsky, by Frank O'Hara

(dima belush)

It actually may be the coldest day of the year here in Los Angeles right now, which made me think of this poem, which those of you who have seen Mad Men Season 2 (Episode 1, I believe?) should recognize - Don sends this volume of poems, Meditations on an Emergency, to a mysterious friend in Berkeley, California, remember?
I'm a big fan of Frank O'Hara and I don't know why. I love this one and I don't know why. I can't ever put my finger on the one element of it that really pulls me in, but nevertheless I keep coming back to it, and every time I find myself drawn to something else in particular. Strange.


1
My heart’s aflutter!
I am standing in the bath tub
crying. Mother, mother
who am I? If he
will just come back once
and kiss me on the face
his coarse hair brush
my temple, it’s throbbing!

then I can put on my clothes
I guess, and walk the streets.

2
I love you. I love you,
but I’m turning to my verses
and my heart is closing
like a fist.

Words! be
sick as I am sick, swoon,
roll back your eyes, a pool,

and I’ll stare down
at my wounded beauty
which at best is only a talent
for poetry.

Cannot please, cannot charm or win
what a poet!
and the clear water is thick

with bloody blows on its head.
I embrace a cloud,
but when I soared
it rained.

3
That’s funny! there’s blood on my chest
oh yes, I’ve been carrying bricks
what a funny place to rupture!
and now it is raining on the ailanthus
as I step out onto the window ledge
the tracks below me are smoky and
glistening with a passion for running
I leap into the leaves, green like the sea

4
Now I am quietly waiting for
the catastrophe of my personality
to seem beautiful again,
and interesting, and modern.

The country is grey and
brown and white in trees,
snows and skies of laughter
always diminishing, less funny
not just darker, not just grey.

It may be the coldest day of
the year, what does he think of
that? I mean, what do I? And if I do,
perhaps I am myself again.