after Frank O'Hara

 

I never did read the news, though I don’t suppose

it made a splash in the Post or Herald Tribune–

with maybe just a line or two

among the baseball stats, divorces,

and the marches picking up

deep down in the Cotton States.

 

And I couldn’t tell you a thing I did

on a day as ordinary as any other

in a year, like others, distinguished

by various deaths, the atrocious weather.

 

He may have gigged at the Five Spot,

Minton’s, the Three Deuces,

but if he did I never caught him,

too young by a long chalk

to sneak past their doors –

back in the days when Bird and Monk

meant nothing to me or even Billie

for whom he wrote his anthem,

Lady Sings the Blues.

 

Playing Dixie to pay the rent,

he tried to tout the tunes he’d written

with crazy names and stranger rhythms,

but never hit the big time.

Before the end he cut some tracks,

then died as spring was shaking off

the longest, hardest winter.