I once re-wrote this piece of gem for a certain person. At the point in time he was the love of my life, and we loved having Fantas, so I re-titled it 'Having a Fanta with you', based on my own personal experiences with him. Yes.. back in the days where I consumed sugar, but sadly, it was hand written, a love letter if you please and he isn't even here for me to get it back to see how I re-worded it. But to this day, this piece sticks with me, even though I can't have Fantas with him any more, and I no longer write love letters and there is no love left, Frank O'Hara, you are a genius.
Frank O'Hara: "Having a Coke with You"
HAVING A COKE WITH YOU
is even more fun than going to San Sebastian, Irún, Hendaye, Biarritz, Bayonne
or being sick to my stomach on the Travesera de Gracia in Barcelona
partly because in your orange shirt you look like a better happier St. Sebastian
partly because of my love for you, partly because of your love for yoghurt
partly because of the fluorescent orange tulips around the birches
partly because of the secrecy our smiles take on before people and statuary
it is hard to believe when I'm with you that there can be anything as still
as solemn as unpleasantly definitive as statuary when right in front of it
in the warm New York 4 o'clock light we are drifting back and forth
between each other like a tree breathing through its spectacles
and the portrait show seems to have no faces in it at all, just paint
you suddenly wonder why in the world anyone ever did them
I look
at you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in the world
except possibly for the Polish Rider occasionally and anyway it's in the Frick
which thank heavens you haven't gone to yet so we can go together the first time
and the fact that you move so beautifully more or less takes care of Futurism
just as at home I never think of the Nude Descending a Staircase or
at a rehearsal a single drawing of Leonardo or Michelangelo that used to wow me
and what good does all the research of the Impressionists do them
when they never got the right person to stand near the tree when the sun sank
or for that matter Marino Marini when he didn't pick the rider as carefully
as the horse
it seems they were all cheated of some marvelous experience
which is not going to go wasted on me which is why I am telling you about it
—Frank O'Hara
Love and Light
'
May the road rise to meet you'
LabellaVee a.k.a Vernee
22 years old and I am stabbed several times. By who you may ask, a man? I am out with my daughter and I am stabbed by my ex lover. I am in my home and killed by a man I knew who also tried to set fire to my home. Me and my friend are stabbed by my lover, I live but he thinks he's killed me so he kills himself. Need I go on?
Does my life mean nothing to you? As a woman, must you continuously hit me, rape me, abuse me, confuse me.
Can I not walk through a party in a camisole, long pants and sneakers and not get harassed by every man I pass. Can you not see my broad bumper and refuse to touch it, or pull my hand to yank me to talk to you? When I give you the 'I'm good' response, must you verbally abuse me as though I have no feelings? As though I am nothing?
Does my life mean nothing to you?
Women, do your lives mean nothing to you? Must you continue to walk around scantily clad, begging for this and that, and then wonder why men treat you the way they do? Can you not see they will only take the power away from you if you let them?
Call me feminist, call me old fashioned, call me a geezer, call me career and academic oriented, but DO NOT call me a slut, DO NOT call me a whore, DO NOT project those labels upon me for me to internalise them and then turn into them.
Does my life mean nothing to you?
Would you rather kill me because you can't have me rather than move on with your life? Plenty fish in the sea pooksie, someone else will want you. But they won't take the abuse from you. So what you dish out to them, they will return ten times fold.
'Hell hath no fury like a woman's scorn'
Does my life mean NOTHING to you?
