Sex in the City

 

 

Song

by Frank O’Hara

 

Is it dirty

does it look dirty

that’s what you think of in the city

 

does it just seem dirty

that’s what you think of in the city

you don’t refuse to breathe do you

 

someone comes along with a very bad character

he seems attractive. is he really. yes. very

he’s attractive as his character is bad. is it. yes

 

that’s what you think of in the city

run your finger along your no-moss mind

that’s not a thought that’s soot

 

and you take a lot of dirt off someone

is the character less bad. no. it improves constantly

you don’t refuse to breathe do you

 

 

(The next couple posts will feature poems I left in Prague and Austria while I was visiting my youngest daughter.)

 

When a poem’s titled “Song” you settle in for a visit to the countryside (or at least I do) but here we are in the city, the dirty city with dirty sidewalks, dirty air, dirty (especially in Prague) walls spray-painted with graffiti, dirty thoughts. Instead of nature-nature, O’Hara gives us human nature, raw and unidealized. Anyway, what’s more natural than desire—

you don’t refuse to breathe do you

 

O’Hara poems always have an energy that makes me feel like I’m hanging out with a fast-talking, fast-moving, can’t-sit-still guy on the verge of a tap dance. It’s the same energy I get when I exit suburbia for a city visit, a feeling of so much going on at once and unlimited possibility. Did I mention how much I love cities?

 

Anyone have thoughts on what a “no-moss mind” is?

 

Here’s an O’Hara’s bio from an earlier post

Born in Baltimore and raised in Massachusetts, O’Hara found his home in the artistic hive of Greenwich Village.  The list of his friends and associates amazes me and calls up an exciting world of cross-pollination. He roomed with Edward Gorey, worked for photographer Cecil Beaton, hung out with poets John Ashberry, Allen Ginsberg, LeRoi Jones (later known as Amiri Baraka), and artists deKooning and Pollock.  O’Hara himself worked across disciplines:  he was an accomplished pianist and jazz lover as well as a poet, playwright, and art critic, earning a living as a curator at the Modern Museum of Art. (In its second season, the TV show Mad Men wisely chose O’Hara as a symbol of nonconforming bohemia, of creativity used in the service of art not commerce —in other words, a symbol of everything Don Draper is not.  Link here for Don Draper reading O’Hara’s “Mayakovsky.”)