Morning
by Frank O’Hara
notes.
1. the last line of each stanza is often a mid-sentence break, which continues in the stanza below. insert mental punctuation where it gets confusing. for example, the first stanzas: I’ve got to tell you how I love you always. I think of it on grey mornings, with death in my mouth. The tea is never hot enough then, and the cigarette dry. The maroon robe chills me.
2. the feeling, often expressed in cliched phrases – I love you always, I need you, I miss you always – is balanced by the little details, the particulars, the things that don’t seem to fit a love poem, exactly, but they end up making it more real: the buses glow, I stand rattling my keys, were there lots of anchovies.
3. the words in this poem are simple; the verbs are “to be” verbs or very low-key action verbs, such as “look,” “hold,” “stand.” Even though we end up with several different place images (the speaker’s home, the dock, the city streets, the parking lot, the beach, the night sky), we don’t notice the movement as much as the the same feeling of loneliness and longing that stays present in the whole poem.
4. the last stanza – the culmination of these feelings – feels right because the earlier poem gives us “passenger” images: buses, car, bicycle. So when we get to that metaphor, it clicks into place and reiterates (without repeating) both the feelings and the images of the poem.
I’ve got to tell you
how I love you always
I think of it on grey
mornings with death
in my mouth the tea
is never hot enough
then and the cigarette
dry the maroon robe
chills me I need you
and look out the window
at the noiseless snow
At night on the dock
the buses glow like
clouds and I am lonely
thinking of flutes
I miss you always
when I go to the beach
the sand is wet with
tears that seem mine
although I never weep
and hold you in my
heart with a very real
humor you’d be proud of
the parking lot is
crowded and I stand
rattling my keys the car
is empty as a bicycle
what are you doing now
where did you eat your
lunch and were there
lots of anchovies it
is difficult to think
of you without me in
the sentence you depress
me when you are alone
Last night the stars
were numerous and today
snow is their calling
card I’ll not be cordial
there is nothing that
distracts me music is
only a crossword puzzle
do you know how it is
when you are the only
passenger if there is a
place further from me
I beg you do not go
Images courtesy of
Igor Dugonjic and
.Pete.