Poem
All of a sudden all the world
is blonde. The Negro on my left
is blonde, his eyes are brimming
like a chalice, he is melting
the gold.
Beside me, passed out
on the floor, a novelist burns a hole
in my pants and he is blonde,
even the cigarette is. Some kind
of Russian cigarette.
Jean Cocteau
must be blonde too. And the music
of William Boyce.
Yes and what
comes out of me is blonde.
I liked this poem because I think it has more than one meaning to it because O’Hara kind of leaves it open for interpretation. I think that he was in a very good mood when he was writing it, using the blonde to represent brightness and happiness. Also I believe that he’s using the word blonde instead of sun or light or a word like that because he was seeing someone who was blonde at the time and that was his inspiration. He is so into this new guy that he’s with that he can see the good in everyone and in the line “passed out on the floor, a novelist burns a hole in my pants and he is blonde” O’Hara is even seeing the positiveness of a novelist who is passed out drunk on the floor by saying that he is blonde. While reading this poem, the word blonde seems to only be figuratively meaning good and positive things.