A TRANSLATION OF FRANK O’HARA
A Step Away From Them
It’s lunchtime, so I go
for a walk down Broadway
on this overcast day, down to
THE KOSHER MARKETPLACE between 90th and 91st
where I pick up a delightful
kosher hamburger with fried onions.
Then up the street to Duane Reade’s
to pick up a bottle of Poland Springs.
It’s October, and raining
a bit, umbrellas are up,
and I’ve even got a black umbrella
of my own, bought
for ten dollars and change
in these times when the prices
are out of scale with the merchandise
which, of course, is made in China.
After lunch
I decide to take a walk down Broadway
to Barnes & Noble, one of the last places
in the country where a person
can browse and potentially buy a book.
And maybe on the way back
I’ll even pick up a few bagels
at Zabar’s. There’s nothing of interest
playing in the movie theatres
at 84th and Broadway, and at 83rd
there’s a homeless guy
standing on the corner
delivering some kind of homily
that only he and the angels above
can possibly understand.
All the mothers with children
steer around him, and I,
too, keep my distance.
I wish it were beautiful and warm
on the Upper West Side,
but it’s really cold and damp
and rather frigid,
too cold, really, for a day
in early October. First
Louis died, then Ruth Taylor,
then Artie, then Sonja. But are
the heavens as full, as life was full of them?
And I have eaten, and now
I’m walking the last block and a half
to Barnes & Noble, where I struggle
for ten minutes to find
the poetry section, eventually
give up and ask a staff member
who directs me to the mezzanine level,
and there it is, and it’s surprisingly
ample. Flip through volumes of Dante,
Neruda, Williams and Frank O’Hara,
leave after a while having
purchased nothing, for there’s
nothing new or exciting in the world
of dead poetry these days.
If I had a job in the city
I’d go back to it, but I am
only visiting for the weekend,
and wishing I’d been given
better weather. So I stop
by Zabar’s for a half-dozen
still warm sesame bagels,
go back outside and put up
my umbrella against the on-again
drizzle, start strolling
towards the subway. If I
stepped out into Broadway
in front of an on-coming cab
I’d soon be one with
the angels, but there’s Tedeschi
Trucks Band to be heard tonight
at the Beacon, so I have
motive to stay in life
at least a little while longer,
my heart beating its sad song
of loneliness and restraint.
But, walking in the rain,
I’m wanting restoration
more than anything else,
here in this city where,
sixty-four years ago,
I was born and cried
my very first tears of loss.
[October 2015]