Frank O'Hara 

*
Frank O'Hara
 Why I Am Not a Painter
*
    I am not a painter, I am a poet.
Why? I think I would rather be
 a painter, but I am not. Well, 
 for instance, Mike Goldberg
 is starting a painting. I drop in.
 “Sit down and have a drink” he
 says. I drink; we drink. I look
 up. “You have SARDINES in it.”
 “Yes, it needed something there.”
 “Oh.” I go and the days go by
 and I drop in again. The painting
 is going on, and I go, and the days
 go by. I drop in. The painting is
 finished. “Where’s SARDINES?”
 All that’s left is just
 letters, “It was too much,” Mike says
 One day I am thinking of
 a color: orange. I write a line
 about orange. Pretty soon it is a
 whole page of words, not lines.
 Then another page. There should be
 so much more, not of orange, of
 words, of how terrible orange is
 and life. Days go by. It is even in
 prose, I am a real poet. My poem
 is finished and I haven't mentioned
 orange yet. It's twelve poems, I call
 it ORANGES. And one day in a gallery
 I see Mike's painting, called SARDINES.

• i just ate a bowl of fixins

  and yet i feel more broken^arted

  ginger

  ginger 

   

  ginger ailed

  poor me.

  a glass

  look in

  gasp

   

  - frankly, o'ver hairy

  
  - dave 12-02-2022 7:02 pm [add a comment]




• Now you both have raisins not to be a painter.
  - bill 12-02-2022 10:14 pm [add a comment]




• as it is i am pantone deaf.
  - dave 12-02-2022 10:20 pm [add a comment]