Perfection

http://disgruntledenglishmajor.tumblr.com/post/33799510969

"Mayakovsky" by Frank O'Hara

1

My heart’s aflutter!

I am standing in the bath tub

crying. Mother, mother

who am I? If he

will just come back once

and kiss me on the face

his coarse hair brush

my temple, it’s throbbing!

then I can put on my clothes

I guess, and walk the streets.

2

I love you. I love you,

but I’m turning to my verses

and my heart is closing

like a fist.

Words! be

sick as I am sick, swoon,

roll back your eyes, a pool,

and I’ll stare down

at my wounded beauty

which at best is only a talent

for poetry.

Cannot please, cannot charm or win

what a poet!

and the clear water is thick

with bloody blows on its head.

I embrace a cloud,

but when I soared

it rained.

3

That’s funny! there’s blood on my chest

oh yes, I’ve been carrying bricks

what a funny place to rupture!

and now it is raining on the ailanthus

as I step out onto the window ledge

the tracks below me are smoky and

glistening with a passion for running

I leap into the leaves, green like the sea

4

Now I am quietly waiting for

the catastrophe of my personality

to seem beautiful again,

and interesting, and modern.

The country is grey and

brown and white in trees,

snows and skies of laughter

always diminishing, less funny

not just darker, not just grey.

It may be the coldest day of

the year, what does he think of

that? I mean, what do I? And if I do,

perhaps I am myself again.

Getting to Know Classmates

As an English major, my favorite type of class has always been the workshop. Aside from the fact that you get to work on your writing more than any other type of class, the workshop allows you to connect with your classmates more. In my other classes, there will be a few various classmates throughout the room that I know by the end of the semester, even if it's just because I asked for their pen one day. It's different in a workshop though. In a workshop, I get to look at and read everyone's art. What we're sharing says something about a person on a much more personal level than just an essay we're peer reviewing. By reading people's stories or poems, I can remember them through their writing style, a layer of depth that we don't usually get to with classmates.