O'Hara

"Animals"

Have you forgotten what we were like then
when we were still first rate
and the day came fat with an apple in its mouth

it's no use worrying about Time
but we did have a few tricks up our sleeves
and turned some sharp corners

the whole pasture looked like our meal
we didn't need speedometers
we could manage cocktails out of ice and water

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 (1926-1966)

This one is strictly for the dreamers among us. I found this moving poem in a strange place indeed; quoted by, of all people, horror tale maestro Stephen King in his 2008 bestseller Duma Key.

I had just finished reading truly engrossing Duma Key (purchased in Singpore recently) this morning, but the prose had been on my mind from the time I stumbled upon it a couple of days ago.

I don't know why the poem appealed to me but I think I have just fallen line, hook and sinker for the works of American 'new age' poet Frank O'Hara who penned it. [O'Hara died in a car crash in New York in 1966, age 40].

Well-known American novelist/ short story writer/ poet/ literary critic/ editor Gilbert Sorrentino (1929-2006) described Frank O'Hara's work as "moving in a world of wry elegance, of gesture, a world made up of a certain kind of strictly New York joie de vivre: slightly down at heels and rumpled, but with the kind of style always a step above current 'style'."

Me? I feel frayed around the edges, yet refreshingly so (if at all it is possible t be so contradictory) reading this poem.....