Frank O'Hara

I am not a painter, I am a poet.
Why? I think I would rather be
a painter, but I am not. Well,

For instance, Mike Goldberg
is starting a painting. I drop in.
'Sit down and have a drink' he
says. I drink; we drink. I look
up. 'You have SARDINES in it."
'Yes, I needed something there.'
'Oh,' I go and days go by
ad I drop in again. The painting
is going on, and I go, and the days
go by. I drop in. The painting is
finished. 'Where's SARDINES?'
All that's left is just
letters, 'It was too much," Mike says.

But me? One days I am thinking of
a color: orange. Pretty soon it is a
whole page of words, not lines.
Then another page. There should be
so much more, not of orange, of
words, how terrible orange is
and life. Days go by. It is even in
prose, I am a real poet. My poem
is finished and I haven't mentioned
orange yet. It's twelve poems, I call
it ORANGES. And one day in a gallery
I see Mike's painting, called SARDINES.

Emily Dickinson

The Duel


I took my power in my hand
And went against the world;
'T was not so much as David had,
But I was twice as bold.

I aimed my pebble, but myself
Was all the one that fell.
Was it Goliath too large,
Or only I too small?

an original:

Bellis Perennis

A little girl
Sees delicate daisies
Peek between the sharp blades of turf.
A modest smear of gold and ivory
Is her greatest discovery.
She sees simplicity in tiny stems
As she plucks them with frail fingers.
She laces her halo
Of weeds.

More Charles Bukowski

"Trapped"

Don't undress my love
you might find a mannequin;
Don't undress the mannequin
you might find
my love.