On Rachmaninoff's Birthday, by Frank O'Hara

[novapsyche]

On Rachmaninoff's Birthday

Quick! a last poem before I go
off my rocker. Oh Rachmaninoff!
Onset, Massachusetts. Is it the fig-newton
playing the horn? Thundering windows
of hell, will your tubes ever break
into powder? Oh my palace of oranges,
junk shop, staples, umber, basalt;
I'm a child again when I was really
miserable, a grope pizzicato. My pocket
of rhinestone, yoyo, carpenter's pencil,
amethyst, hypo, campaign button,
is the room full of smoke? Shit
on the soup, let it burn. So it's back.
You'll never be mentally sober.

1953

Comments

[novapsyche.livejournal.com]

O'Hara was really ahead of his time. Think about other poems written around 1953... most of them were still in some formal scheme.

[kittenkissies.livejournal.com]

What do you think made him so revolutionary?