Deconstruction of the Blues

Personism Personified

28 PERSONISM PERSONIFIED Oh, Frank O’Hara forever writing your “now I do this now I do that” poems Whereas, me, I never do anything! I just sit around deliberating over each word It gets as t h i n as the stem of a champagne glass but then rounds out to a turbulent basso like the full creamy buttocks of a woman Abstract abstract purple curves, though Oh, I can throw in details! Elizabeth and Jerry’s house, the flowers and wreaths, the cats, and telephone messages on the blackboard the living undertone: kids growing, the house appreciating in a slow steamerlike rending of flesh and money 29 But my details bleed away into blue air and sun or they compress and sit heavy and sphinxlike on the American street Whereas you, Frank, what grace! what flair! tossing your scarf making your tea pressing your face into the soft woozy stomach of your pussycat or just lying brown-fingered (and brown-cocked?) puffing cigarette after cigarette by a recumbent famous body in Heaven ...