By William Eaton (O’Hara text below)
When I was a child
There was an old tree
where my sisters and I played –
fantasies.
There was not much else around –
an old barn, grass and sheep.
Further along,
our strip of beach.
I remember my mother
and a sister squaring off.
Eight years old, she told
mom to get lost.
And so here I am, in
Central Square, Cambridge,
having fun with Frank O’Hara.
Imagine!
Autobiographia Literaria
By Frank O’Hara
When I was a child
I played by myself in a
corner of the schoolyard
all alone.
I hated dolls and I
hated games, animals were
not friendly and birds
flew away.
If anyone was looking
for me I hid behind a
tree and cried out “I am
an orphan.”
And here I am, the
center of all beauty!
writing these poems!
Imagine!
The two ink drawings are also by William Eaton, working from a Van Gogh self-portrait and Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres’s Portrait de monsieur Bertin. Other Montaigbahktinian posts under the influence of Frank O’Hara: This is my poem for Terminal B (yet more influenced by Langston Hughes) and Lunch Poem (with such apologies as may be due to Frank O’Hara and “The Day Lady Died”).
