Sorry, I haven't posted for a while... I made it through Lent, and wanted to just sit for a while with all of the poems I've recently discovered, letting them sink in before I search for more poetry. But a friend told me about this poem today, and I have to share it. It's an acrostic (meaning, the first letter of each line spells out a name) by Frank O'Hara, for his lover, Vincent Warren, referring to the "el" train in Chicago:
Vaguely I hear the purple roar of the torn-down Third Avenue El
it sways slightly but firmly like a hand or a golden-downed thigh
normally I don’t think of sounds as colored unless I’m feeling corrupt
concrete Rimbaud obscurity of emotion which is simple and very definite
even lasting, yes it may be that dark and purifying wave, the death of boredom
nearing the heights themselves may destroy you in the pure air
to be further complicated, confused, empty but refilling, exposed to light
With the past falling away as an acceleration of nerves thundering and shaking
aims its aggregating force like the Métro towards a realm of encircling travel
rending the sound of adventure and becoming ultimately local and intimate
repeating the phrases of an old romance which is constantly renewed by the
endless originality of human loss the air the stumbling quiet of breathing
newly the heavens’ stars all out we are all for the captured time of our being
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