The Joker
Poem
by Frank O’Hara
God! love! sun! all dear and singular things!
I am not bad although I am wicked
perhaps, and not too rare. Beat, yes, liquored
to exhaustion, dead tired in sheets, still sings
to me the thunderous redwood’s laughings
at my ears, a lover patient and picked,
and the crooning violet’s not panicked
by my bloodshot foreskin, swollen lips, wings,
her tongue stays in my ear and sings. Purple
clouds, doubting, say hello across the lawn
and linen, wondering if I’m too gay
with exits, too abrupt with doors. Away
far! the scratchy tune “L’amant du peuple”:
I see a girl tap-dancing on the dawn.