Having a Coke With You *

*The original version of this blog was written on the back of a copy of 'The Waking' by Theodore Roethke.

I had never before heard of Frank O'Hara.  But.  I do have a guilty pleasure for bad, I mean truly awful, tween romances and sometimes it pays to be idealistically and naively invested in the idea that movie love can be honest and somehow translate in real-life love. That is to say (rather ashamedly) that the other day I watched "Beastly." Starring whatever young Disney pop-royalty is currently making pre-highschoolers drool, it is terrible.  Really.  The only reason I won't say "don't waste your time" is because this terrible film managed one moment of goodness (well... two if you could the use of Deathcab for Cutie's "Trasatlanticism" in the soundtrack) when it introduced me (and probably millions of pre-teens who can't possibly appreciate it's subtlety) to Frank O'Hara's 'Having a Coke With You.'

What this poem did for me- the reason I am waxing stupidly profound on it- was two-fold.  It made that leap from movie love to real-life love and it reminded me about poetry.  Could I be a little more vague?  Probably. But I will try to explain.  This poem captures the iridescence of love- the shimmering silly sweetness; the rarity of it; and the impression of revolution- literally, the world revolves around this love that you feel and the person for whom you feel it.  And what's really important is that 'Having a Coke With You' is a poem- it's the real thing written by a person who (I sincerely hope) has felt these real feelings.  It's not Hollywood, it's hope. It's hope that people can love (romantically, platonically, whatever) with depth, power, and a fullness that seldom seems possible in us human folk.

Perhaps I am too young.

Then there is the poetry part.  In my musings and movings-around, my rush to be everywhere all the time, I had forgotten this other love of mine.  I have read, enjoyed and written poetry for ages now.  It is wonderful, fine, short-form literature that has the short-form capacity to challenge tremendously what you know and want desperately to be true.  And then my love changed a bit.  It grew, developed; mutated into a beast of unfathomable consequence.  Who knew I, the Ice Queen, could FEEL?

In college (after my deeply wounded departure from organized religion) I bought a small, paperback TS Eliot reader.  It became my bible.  Eliot's 'Gerontion' made sense to me in an unusually visceral way.  Ash Wednesday blew my mind.  The power of his work is fairly universal but for me it was also ferociously personal.  A case of "right time, right place."  Derek Walcott came next, in all his post-colonial glory.  Carl Sandburg (I kid you not, 'Have Me' defined love for me.  It should be the dictionary definition); William Carlos Williams; don't even get me started on Rilke and how alarmed I was on finding myself craving his densely religious work.  I don't believe in his God, but I do believe in his words.  God, Rilke!

All of these poets crowded into my heart and my brain.  They made me THINK.  And I did them the ultimate injustice.  I forgot.  I forgot to pick up my books, their books, and love them.  I forgot to have my breath stolen.  I just forgot.

And then I was reminded... ironically enough, by 'Beastly'.  Seriously.  But you take what you are given right? I was given a Coke.

Cheers, my dears.

See that?  I'm a poet.