for Frank O'Hara

Switch on lights yellow as the sun
                                                    in the bedroom...
The gaudy poet dead         Frank O'Hara's bones
                                                          under squares of grass
An emptiness at 8 PM in the Cedar Bar
           Throngs of drunken
                  guys talking about paint
           & lofts, and Pennsylvania youth. 
                   Klein attacked by his heart
& chattering Frank
        stopped forever—
   Faithful drunken adorers, mourn.
             The busfare's a nickel more
         past his old apartment on 9th Street by the park.
Delicate Peter loved his praise,
             I wait for the things he says
                                                about me—
             Did he think me an Angel
             as angel I am still talking into earth's microphone
                                                     willy nilly
              —to come back as words ghostly hued
                                             by early death
             but written so bodied
                           mature in another decade.
Chatty prophet
                     of yr own loves, personal
                     memory feeling fellow
              Poet of building-glass
I see you walking as you said with your tie
flopped over your shoulder in the wind down 5th Avenue
                      under the handsome breasted workmen
                          on their scaffolds ascending Time
                                & washing the windows of Life
—off to a date with Martinis & a blond
                          beloved poet far from home
                         —with thee and Thy sacred Metropolis
           in the enormous bliss       of a long afternoon
           where death is the shadow
                        cast by Rockefeller Center
                                              over your intimate street.
Who were you, black suited, hurrying to meet,
            Unsatisfied one?
                         Unmistakable,
                                    Darling date
for the charming solitary/ young poet with a big cock
                            who could fuck you all night long
                                         till you never came,
            trying your torture on his/ obliging fond body
            eager to satisfy god's whim that made you
                          Innocent, as you are.
I tried/  your boys and found them ready
            sweet and amiable
                   collected gentlemen
                           with large sofa apartments
lonesome to please    for pure language;
and you mixed with money
              because you knew language enough to be rich
                     If you wanted your walls to be empty
deep philosophical terms   for Edwin Denby   serious as Herbert Read
with silvery hair    announcing    your dead gift
to the crowd    whose greatest op art    frisson
was the new sculpture     your big blue wounded body
              made in the Universe
    when you went away    to Fire Island for the weekend
tipsy with a crowd of decade-olden friends
Peter stares out the window    at the robbers
       distracted     in Amphetamine
and I stare into my head & look for your/   broken roman nose
           your wet mouth-smell of martinis
                  & a big artistic tipsy kiss.