GUm

It is 12:15 and no New York in sight
The weatherman keeps on droning on about the fogginess
I
Slip on some shoes and slide out the door
To find they're not my shoes and
It's sunny

It's rainy
Not sunny
And all the weatherman can do
is keep us looking up for more unidentified flying
Particles

On to the farmer's market
By an orange to find an apple to chew
We don't like oranges
as much as apples, nor apples as much as lemons
For lemons you can make juice out of
And apples you just can't squeeze that hard
But oranges you can
but no one cares what oranges can do
Because they're orange

I keep trodding with sticky tack
Of some
Thing
On the bottom of
Someone Else's
Shoe
On my foot

Pass the Kizito place on the left
With her headdress and cookie plate all set
Bikers whiz by without helmets
I guess they want to be cool without the protection
And it's quite a sticky situation
When one tries to wear another's shoe for a while
It never works
But don't take it from my foot
Put it on yours

The sun comes back out
And with Smoothie King around the corner
A guitarist or two evades our crowd of misfits
Almost cracking someone in the head with their instruments
Then disappear
Whatever else is new
A Caribbean Way in hand
we'll see another side of life move on

The air says today will be sunny
Or rainy
Or both
Or foggy
The Bardstown Road keeps meandering as the sticky tack
Clacks
But not another word on the weather
Or we'll all just cry cats and dogs

With another thought flinging into our heads
Finding
U
In the middle of them both on a shoe

REFLECTION

Reading Frank O'Hara allows the ease and simplicity of capturing moments as they proceed enjoyable. O'Hara uses the present tense to escort the reader into his experiences, no matter how trivial. Using much of description (of the little things, such as his favorite motifs of weather) and his own thoughts on the subjects he sees, O'Hara makes sense of the world in a sarcastic light, finding humor.
As I tried to form an experience of walking down Bardstown Road, I kept in mind O'Hara's present tense style. As the experience goes on, the motif of weather keeps the reader in the moment as it switches back and forth, much like in "The Day Lady Died." O'Hara always progresses easily into the next thought, so each line is seamlessly flowing (with enjambment) into the next line to portray O'Hara's fluid thought process. Even in the end, the lines do not make point to terminate, making use of the reader's flowing conscious. This progression also refers to the idea of Personism, where life is lived as a progression and a conversation between two people. So, I tried to place the reader directly in the scene using present tense, the senses of the scene (weather), as well as using "we" and calling upon the "you" of the reader. Also, the different sizes of lines, as well as various groupings and uppercase letters standing out in the poetry of O'Hara intrigued me, thus I employed some of these findings.
Also, there is a little bit of a switch during the poem. I placed the "I" in the middle of a line by itself in the beginning. And, in the end, "U" stands out by itself. Wanting to make notice of the way Frank O'Hara keeps his reader engaged even while starting the scene with his conscious self, referring to "I" usually only once or twice in his work, I made the reader stand out more in the end. In standing out more, the reader becomes the one who experiences most of the play '" the reader becomes the experience. And, I think that's what Frank O'Hara was trying to capture.