Cement seeps into your bones
steel thick glass
pervade the last chill
Of bone
The workmen of New York
in 1970
once marched
in protest against freedom
A grand gesture
(steel thick glass cement)
in solidarity with Spiro Nixon
(the two-headed eagle)
Guernica
shrieks
on every street
Sometimes it seems
The whole world
has turned into
A Spanish civil war
The not-eyes of the skyscrapers
go looking for you
Frank O’Hara where are
you [omission]?
Where is that easy laughter
that lent its arm
to New York?
Where flow the ecstasies
Of the dead?
[omission]In the heart
Of this mythological city of the 20th century
Picasso is exorcised
I scream
Frederico
I scream
Garcia
I scream
Lorca
Guernica Garcia Lorca
This city does not abide laments
It doesn’t understand death
But in its heart it can endure
The most barbaric and noble cries of mercy
The skyscrapers sway
to these ceaseless cries
The people cover their ears and their eyes
And walk that much faster
and that much more
Terrified
(The dead unloose their wings)
On the building next to
The First National City Bank
At the corner of 5th Avenue and 42nd Street
On July 7, 1970
I read these words on the door:
Sign the petition
Sign off the war
Petition drive
For charter amendment
to test legality of war
……………………………………………………………………………………
If you are registered to vote in New York City
Please come inside and sign a petition for
PEACE
I saw the statue of liberty
(Of liberty)
It was literally green
With rage
And frustration
Something has died in the arms of the world
Without a name
Or a funeral service
Dusk falls
Over Manhattan
It is the hour when flowers float in water that tilts towards dreams
It is in this hour of the intense vertical shadow
It is in this hour amidst all that is gentle
That I think of you Frederico
That I think of you Frank O’Hara
And of everything that is hated and is loved about this city
Frederico
from what green rats
where
here
Did you discover the missing wreath of the Moor?
From where here came your solitude?
I close my eyes
And I ask
meekly
what happened to you in this city
Frederico
What black light struck you
with its lightning
What agony?
What glance did you exchange with Hart Crane?
The skyscrapers
Sometimes
Levitate
It is in this uncommon lightness
That I glimpse the swift movements
Of Frank O’Hara
How I long for your verve
How I I wish I had known you
and walked with you
In your beloved city
In another New York
and another
and another
and another
that I’ll never know…
Who will lead us, with those forest eyes
(With that guileless irony
Little Red Riding Hood?
Robin Hood
Johnny Weissmuller
Out of all the ways we can lose ourselves
In such a city as this?)
Where is your New York?
What exactly did your thoughts
hold about
Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday Lady Day on the day of her death
What did you think of Federico
And the bar out front
And the Negro [omission] who doesn’t know
Where Times Square is?
(Look behind you, I’m smirking)
He has his reasons, sociological and legitimate
I have my own, human one—
A chacun son gout
The Sun, refracted, seeps into
The crevices of this Grand Canyon
(O Cesario Verde, why didn’t you ever come to New York, in
this 20th century?)
Cesario, ye of Western thought.
New York.
July 7, 8, 9, 1970.
Addressing some of your notations, Margarida (thank you for those): I have other options, of course, but a question-the word 'e' is here without accents sometimes so I wasn't sure always whether it was the "and" or the "it is". "Frank O'Hara where are you here?" is more literal but I left out the "here" because (despite Browning's assertions of the "absolutely literal") I thought it might result in a stilted English. The phrase "ausencia de grinaldas mouras" threw me a bit, also, because "Moorish garlands" was the vocabulary option I had from the dictionary. Is that correct? I know he is referring to something in a Lorca poem here, but not which one. The Billie Holiday section I had other notions for, i.e. "what would you think" instead of "what did your thoughts hold" and "Look behind you: I’m smiling with disdain/contempt/disdainfully" which seemed a bit harsh, directed at the black man, whose "reasons" he understands, and instead to suggest something more conspiratorial with O'Hara: "Look behind you and see me smirk." There are other parts, of course, that I wrestled with to make the flow consistent with the voice. Obrigado e ate.
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