The Day I was Born

I keep almost everything I write. I've got way too many "Mead Composition" books in a variety of places. Three on my desk, two in my backpack, seven on my bookshelf; some of them are filled with words, others remain blank. I write ideas in these books. I write ideas on scraps of paper. I write ideas on Word documents. The original form of a screenplay I wrote with my friend, Mike Rizzo, exists in spiral notebooks and a couple other Mead books. It also exists in several saved computer documents. I've got binders full of poems I wrote years ago; some dating back 20 years from college.

I can't seem to throw the stuff away or delete the files from my computer. I don't think it's narcissism that makes me keep everything. Most of the stuff is utter crap, really. I think that maybe it paints a history of my life. It shows, in personal writing, what I may have been thinking, feeling, living, at a specific time in my life.

I found a poem I wrote in college. It was an exercise suggested by the poet, Dean Young. We were supposed to pick a published poem--any one we wanted--and mimic the style. The finished product was going to be original, but the form of the poem would be borrowed. I chose to pick the poem, "The Day Lady Died" by Frank O'Hara.
I offer both, for your enjoyment:

THE DAY THE LADY DIED
By FRANK O'HARA
It is 12:20 in New York a Friday
three days after Bastille Day, yes
it is 1959, and I go get a shoeshine
because I will get off the 4:19 in East Hampton
at 7:15 and then go straight to dinner
and I don't know the people who will feed me
I walk up the muggy street beginning to sun
and have a hamburger and a malted and buy
an ugly NEW WORLD WRITING to see what the poets
in Ghana are doing these days
I go on to the bank
and Miss Stillwagon (first name Linda I once heard)
doesn't even look up my balance for once in her life
and in the GOLDEN GRIFFIN I get a little Verlaine
for Patsy with drawings by Bonnard although I do
think of Hesiod, trans. Richmond Lattimore or
Brendan Behan's new play or Le Balcon or Les Nègres
of Genet, but I don't, I stick with Verlaine
after practically going to sleep with quandariness
and for Mike I just stroll into the PARK LANE
Liquor Store and ask for a bottle of Strega, and
then I go back where I came from to 6th Avenue
and the tobacconist in the Ziegfeld Theatere and
casually ask for a carton of Gauloises and a carton
of Picayunes, and a NEW YORK POST with her face on it
and I am sweating a lot by now and thinking of
leaning on the john door in the 5 SPOT
while she whispered a song along the keyboard
to Mal Waldron and everyone and I stopped breathing.

THE DAY I WAS BORN

By CORY FOSCO
It is 10:48 in Chicago a Wednesday
seven days after Dad’s birthday, yes
it is 1970 and my father gets his car washed
because Mom will be coming home in 3 days
at 12:30 and then put me straight in my crib
and I won’t take the formula they feed me
Dad walks down the well-lighted hallway beginning to stink
like disinfectant and touches the glass and thinks he’s got
my attention because I move my head and smile because I have gas
and that’s the face I make
He goes on to a bar
and Moe (my dad knew him in Vietnam)
buys him a scotch for once in his life
and in the Grove Barber my father gets a haircut
for Mom because it has been a while since she’s seen him so clean
and he reads Playboy or really looks at the pictures in the magazine
while listening to Old Blue Eyes, trans. Frank Sinatra and
the barber’s son changes the station to Led Zeppelin
but the old men don’t like that so they go back to Sinatra
after practically screaming with vexation
and for mother Dad just strolls into the SHERIDAN FLORIST
and asks for a dozen long stems
and then he comes back to the hospital on Clark Street
and the nurse at the Edgewater receptionist desk and
casually asks for a blue ball point pen and a guest
pass, and she gives him an envelope with my picture in it
and Dad is crying a lot by now and thinking of
going back to MOE’S to have another scotch
while listening to Sinatra sing about Chicago
but he gives back the pen and takes the elevator to the second floor