Talkin Frank O'Hara blues

Well gather round you poets
and you common folk as well
wanna tell you 'bout O Hara
and 'bout how that angel fell.

Frank lived up in NY City
in a scraper like a hill.
He loved to swing from dusk to dawn
when he had time to kill,
from theatres to galleries
takin every kind a pill.
Well Frank he was a poet
a bard of changin times
he gave this crazy world a rhythm
to make it beat in time.

Well in the rainy fall of 48
he was feelin kinda down
his busy head was spinnin
from this dizzy world a turnin round.
Well Frank knew he had a problem
when the rain kept comin down
cos he lived beside the Hudson
and the Hudson's goin brown

Well he walked down to the Hudson
to that mirror full of slime
and he jumped back from that mirror
shoutin "That ugly face ain't mine".

Face told him that raindrops he heard
were bombs goin off all over the world
told him that the screechin wind
Were the dyin cries of his screamin friends
told him that the sunset light
was Hiroshima's eternal night
told him that the god he craved
kept the human race enslaved.

So Angel Hara turned and ran
"My wings are heavy I cannot swim".

But that there Hudson Burst its banks
went right on after Poet Frank.

Well Frank ran to the hardware store
for sandbags five or ten
and he bolted up his door
and he bolted it again.
Then he danced between his bookshelves
and he whistled through his pen
singin no matter how that river
rises I ain't gonna let it in,
Singin river you can go to hell
cos river I can't swim
no matter all your bangin noise
ain't no way you're comin in.

So while the Hudson rose and rose
For six long years Frank wrote and wrote
and every time he looked outside
saw visions of the final tide,
saw Jackson Pollock floatin by.
And though he poured out poetry
and he rattled out the prose
still the Hudson rose and rose
still the Hudson rose and rose,
Till in 54 he was washed away
but 'fore he died had this to say-

Well we poets and we angels
we better learn to swim
cos the river keeps on risin
and the winters comin in

we poets and we angels
we better learn to swim
cos the waters they are risin
and the winters comin in.

Heck good old Woody Guthrie
would a jumped straight right on in.

^

Biography

My name is Dave Lordan and I am a native of West Cork living in Co. Dublin. I am 26 years old and have just completed the creative writing mphil in Trinity College Dublin. I intend to spend the next couple of years learning about the craft of poetry and reading and publishing as widely as possible. I have work forthcoming in the Spring issue of Metro Eireann.