how can one ever think anythings permanant


Howard Hodgkin, Hello, 2008

Nachtmusik
-- by David Markson

The women said:
Is there any point in reducing
Every damned question to sex?

There was Mozart on.
And what she really
Meant was: Couldn't we maybe delve
Into a few dozen more of her neuroses
Before we screwed again?

Now here is what was actually
In my own head around then:
That funeral, in that rain,
Where nobody could spare the time
To set some shabbiest of signals
At his grave.

I assume I've already
Telegraphed the last part of this.
Naturally I forgot her name.
But I could diagram exactly
Where the turntable stood.


A Quiet Poem
-- by Frank O'Hara

When music is far enough away
the eyelid does not often move

and objects are still as lavender
without breath or distant rejoinder.

The cloud is then so subtly dragged
away by the silver flying machine

that the thought of it alone echoes
unbelievably; the sound of the motor falls

like a coin toward the ocean's floor
and the eye does not flicker

as it does when in the loud sun a coin
rises and nicks the near air. Now,

slowly, the heart breathes to music
while the coins lie in wet yellow sand.