New Personal Poem

[Verse 1: Ted Berrigan]
You had your own reasons for getting

In your own way. You didn’t want to be

Clear to yourself. You knew a hell

Of a lot more than you were willing

to let yourself know. I felt

Natural love for you on the spot. R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Right.

Beautiful. I don’t use the word lightly. I

Protested with whatever love (honesty) (& frontal nudity)

A yes basically reserved Irish Catholic American Providence Rhode

Island New Englander is able to manage. You

Are sophisticated, not uncomplicated, not

Naïve, and Not simple. An Entertainer, & I am, too.

Frank O’Hara respected love, so do you, & so do we.

He was himself & I was me. And when we came together

Each ourselves in Iowa, all the way

That was love, & it still is, love, today. Can you see me

In what I say? Because as well I see you know

In what you have to say, I did love Frank, as I do

You, “in the right way”.

That’s just talk, not Logos,

a getting down to cases:

I take it as simple particulars that

we wear our feelings on our faces.