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Jane Awake

The opals hiding your lids
 as you sleep, as you ride ponies
mysteriously, spring to bloom
 like the blue flowers of autumn
 
each nine o’clock. And curls
 tumble languorously towards
the yawning rubber band, tan,
 your hand pressing all that
 
riotous black sleep into
 the quiet form of daylight
and its sunny disregard for
 the luminous volutions, oh!
 
and the budding waltzes
 we swoop through in nights.
Before dawn you roar with
 your eyes shut, unsmiling,
 
your volcanic flesh hides
 everything from the watchman,
and the tendrils of dreams
 strangle policemen running by
 
too slowly to escape you,
 the racing vertiginous waves
of your murmuring need. But
 he is day’s guardian saint
 
that policeman, and leaning
 from your open window you ask
him what to dress to wear and
 to comb your hair modestly,
 
for that is now your mode.
 Only by chance tripping on stairs
do you repeat the dance, and
 then, in the perfect variety of
 
subdued, impeccably disguised,
 white black pink blue saffron
and golden ambiance, do we find
 the nightly savage, in a trance.
Other works by Frank O'Hara...



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