"At the Old Place" by Frank O'Hara

(ed note: I thought of this poem last night, the minute the NYS Senate passed the marriage equality act.  "The Old Place" was a bar in Greenwich Village.  I'm so glad that NYS stepped up! -- sdh)

Frank O'Hara, "At the Old Place"

Joe is restless and so am I, so restless.
Button's buddy lips frame "L G T TH O P?"
across the bar. "Yes!" I cry, for dancing's
my soul delight. (Feet! Feet!) "Come on!"

Through the streets we skip like swallows.
Howard malingers. (Come on, Howard.) Ashes
malingers. (Come on, J.A.) Dick malingers.
(Come on, Dick.) Alvin darts ahead. (Wait up,
Alvin.) Jack, Earl, and Someone don't come.

Down the dark stairs drifts the steaming cha-
cha-cha. Through the urine and smoke we charge
to the floor. Wrapped in Ashes' arms I glide.

(It's heaven!) Button lindys with me. (It's
heaven!) Joe's two-steps, too, are incredible,
and then a fast rhumba with Alvin, like skipping
on toothpicks. And the interminable intermissions,

we have them. Jack, Earl and Someone drift
guiltily in. "I knew they were gay
the minute I laid eyes on them!" screams John.
How ashamed they are of us! we hope.

Comments

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Thanks for posting this wonderful poem, so apt for this great occasion. One thing: the second line should read "L G T TH O P" -- as in "Let's go to the Old Place." The "B" is a typo, one that seems to also be in other versions on the web, and it renders the otherwise understandable line pretty hard to parse. The original poem, in Don Allen's Collected Poems of O'Hara, reads "L G T TH OP."

Hooray for NY!

Andrew Epstein

[The Best American Poetry]

Thanks Andrew. The vote made me want to dance and that's why this poem came to mind. For the longest time I thought those letters stood for "Let's go to the hop," which still makes sense, yes?
Stacey

[Lisa]

Great poem. And the ruling yesterday, a great hop forward. It's about time...Let's all dance!

[Andrew Epstein]

It could be "let's go to the hop," Stacey, as that certainly fits, but I've always thought, given the context, the poem is describing a night when O'Hara, LeSueur, Ashbery, and the rest of their crew are at a non-gay bar and then John Button mouths "Let's go to the Old Place," and they leave and head to that bar, only to find that "Jack, Earl, and Someone," who they'd left behind, show up to dance at the gay bar too.

Your post reminded me of the often quoted remark by John Button, who was asked much later "What would Frank have thought of gay liberation?" and Button replied "Oh, he would have thought it was silly, but he would have loved the dances."

I don't think this feels quite fair to O'Hara's political sensibility (Joe LeSueur has more on this in Digressions, for example), but it's funny and charming. I can only imagine how thrilled O'Hara would've been last night, both because of the dances, which he would have loved, but also because for him, human freedom and equality and dignity, were not silly at all.

Thanks again for posting.

[M Robbins]

Means "Let's go to the Old Place"