Allen Ginsberg:
A Supermarket In California
What thoughts I have of
you tonight, Walt Whit-
man, for I walked down
the sidestreets under the trees
with a headache
self-conscious looking at the full moon.
In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for
images,
I went into the neon
fruit supermarket, dreaming of
your enumerations!
What peaches and what penumbras! Whole
fam-
ilies shopping at
night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives
in the avocados, babies
in the tomatoes!--and you,
García Lorca, what were
you doing down by the
watermelons?
I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely
old
grubber, poking among
the meats in the refrigerator
and eyeing the grocery
boys.
I heard you asking questions of each: Who
killed
the pork chops? What
price bananas? Are you my
Angel?
I wandered in and out of the brilliant
stacks of
cans following you, and
followed in my imagination
by the store
detective.
We strode down the open corridors together
in
our solitary fancy
tasting artichokes, possessing every
frozen delicacy, and
never passing the cashier.
Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The
doors
close in an hour. Which
way does your beard point
tonight?
(I touch your book and dream of our
odyssey in the
supermarket and feel
absurd.)
Will we walk all night through solitary
streets?
The trees add shade to
shade, lights out in the houses,
we'll both be
lonely.
Will we stroll dreaming ofthe lost America
of love
past blue automobiles
in driveways, home to our silent
cottage?
Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old
courage-
teacher, what America
did you have when Charon quit
poling his ferry and
you got out on a smoking bank
and stood watching the
boat disappear on the black
waters of Lethe?
Berkeley
1955
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