Metathingal Poem
In thinking about Frank O’Hara
Why would he push me so,
telling me to scribble as if at
gun-point, or at
knife-edge, or at
razor’s blade?
Because such hurry and concern about
Coca-cola bottles and where to go
shallows the unfathomable.
Reducing visions of afric zerba races to
metro tokens.
Now, now, no, no please don’t get me wrong:
I too know what the token tokens and
what a Coke bottle can bottle up,
but please, don’t push me so
This world
would
already
so hurry
me
along,
like Time the Usher, tyrannically insisting I take my seat.
What is this intimate yell,
as if experience were
the only natural thing
and Metaphysics just after
the natural thing,
not conceding a possible thing of things or the Thing of things or perhaps the natural thing in itself or before it,
like a prefix to its sensuousness.
But he could not be troubled with such a thing:
the thing, the thing of things that troubles me.
