A Supermarket in California
What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for I walked down the
streets 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 families shopping at night! Aisles
full of husbands! Wives in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes! --- and you,
Garcia 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 of the 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?
poem by Allen Ginsberg
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Related quotes
A Wonderful Night
Allen Ginsburg ambushed me
The other night
In the neon fruit supermarket
While I was out perusing for a late night snack
He howled at me
Till I gave him the light of day
And believe me
He took every minute of it
Down the aisle of chips
He followed me
And laughed every time I tried to pick one
And danced a little jig
Wile comparing the Doritos Nacho Cheese
To a Hollywood hopeful all decked out in plastic
“They all taste great”
He said
“But in the end they are nothing but junk food”
We peeked around the corner
To the produce section
And witnessed Garcia Lorca
Wandering way down by the watermelons
Allen Ginsburg whispered to himself
“What are you doing down there? ”
Intrigued...
Curious...
Innocent...
We took a left turn
And high stepped arm in arm
Down aisles of hungry men shopping for wishful women
And made up prophetic jingles
For products yet undiscovered
I turned my head for a second
And witnessed Carol Sandburg
At the end of a long aisle
Where over heated workingmen
Purchased underpaying jobs
He was painting murals on the floor
With a mop and bucket full of dirty water form the Chicago River
I turned my head back and saw
Allen Ginsburg staring transfixed
At an old man poking among the meats and eyeing the grocery boys
“Who is it? ” I whisper
He grabbed my arm
“It's him, the childless, lonely, old grubber”
“It's Walt Whitman”
We followed him as
He meandered through
The phosphorescent frozen vegetables
Whistling whimsically in tune
With their mournful warbling
As they lay stiffly in their vegetable morgue
At the end of the aisle
He paused and looked back
And for a moment I caught his eye
The world warped and disintegrated into an instant
I was surrounded by a quiet forest of giant old souls that gently brushed their branches across my mind
The peace was profound
But so easily shattered by the blink of an eye
To my great regret
I blinked...
And the blathering world slammed back into my head.
poem by Chance Foreman
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Great Poets Missed Never Met
Great poets missed
never met
never engaged
artistic in conversation
we missed William Shakespeare
John Milton, Edmund Spenser
who wrote 'The Faerie Queene';
John Done long gone but not forgotten
we missed Francois Marie Arouet
better known as pen name Voltaire
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
and macabre master Edgar Allan Poe
we missed the romantic poets
Shelley, Keats, Lord Byron
all dead within three years
of each others tragic deaths
we missed William Blake
“Tyger! Tyger! burning bright,
In the forest of the night,
What immortal hand or eye”
we missed the lake poets
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
William Wordsworth who
quarrelled irrevocably parted
we missed Robert Browning
wife Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Henry Wadsworth-Longfellow
Italian Dante Gabriel Rossetti
sister Christina Georgina Rossetti
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt Whitman
Lewis Carroll who took us in concepts
‘Through the Looking-Glass’ allusions
we also missed Wilfred Owen pacifist
T.S. Eliot walking ‘The Waste Land’
Siegfried Sassoon slaughter survived
Wystan Hugh Auden a man of a lit wit
William Carlos Williams upon ‘a red
wheel barrow’ so much depends spins
Sylvia Plath into ‘The Bell Jar’ while
Allen Ginsberg stalks Walt Whitman
through ‘A Supermarket in California’
as he asks ‘Who killed the pork chops?
What price bananas? Are You my Angel? ’
‘We strode down the open corridors in
our solitary fancy tasting artichokes,
possessing every frozen delicacy, and
never passing the cashier. Where are
we going, ’ Terence Craddock they asked
me, but already I have passed on into
future flights of fancy, as I blaze past
Space Shuttle Challenger 73 seconds
into its flight; before NASA knew it needed
another seven astronauts, as silver molten
teardrops fall gravity defeated earth bound
while I stealth fly Iraqi skies dropping golden
phoenix liquid fire searching out peace signs.
Great poets missed
never met
never engaged
artistic in conversation
you missed William Shakespeare
you missed Edgar Allan Poe
you missed Allen Ginsberg
don’t miss Terence Craddock
smile on the face of the Tyger
disappears entirely leaving only
wide grin suspended in air memory
leaves stir whisper passing words
Camera Obscura vaulted dark room
collecting plate of poems bright sunlight
travelling through pinhole wickerwork
interlaced fingers creates circular patches
light cast upon the ground captures images
inner eye views Pyramidal rays thought
forms while Charon poles our poet friends
past black waters of death to alight in dreams.
Copyright © Terence George Craddock
Allen Ginsberg quotations are from his poem ‘A Supermarket in California’.
poem by Terence George Craddock
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An Apple from Walt Whitman
There's never been a poet where I live,
but I grew up in the shade of Whitman's name:
born in West Hills—our hills—he would have walked
our paths along the crest. I walked Whitman Road,
crashed the Whitman Drive-In, stole a book
from the sci-fi rack at the Melville-Whitman Pharmacy,
even played lacrosse against Whitman High;
we lost three times, the guys from Halfway Hollow,
to young men with Whitman in white on their varsity jackets.
My mother tells a story about Thanksgiving,
back when kids went begging in rags and blackface:
how Carrie Wicks's sister said she got
an apple from Walt Whitman, right at his house,
an old man with a beard. The big kids laughed,
knowing the white-haired caretaker was no one.
I set no foot inside the Whitman House
or Leaves of Grass till after I went away,
but I'm better having grown up with the name,
the house and hills of a poet everyone knew,
a poet big enough in the mothers' stories
for a girl to believe he came to the door with a long
white beard and smiled and handed her an apple.
If a poet the size of Whitman named our few
square miles and a few in Jersey it's going to take
a lot more big ones to hand us all a welcome
sweet as a Thanksgiving apple from Walt Whitman,
white-haired care-taker, seed of mothers' stories,
Appleseed of our poetry: nourishment, shade.
poem by Eric Torgersen
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Not for a moment, beautiful aged Walt Whitman, have I failed to see your beard full of butterflies.
quote by Federico Garcia Lorca
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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So Far And So Far, And On Toward The End
SO far, and so far, and on toward the end,
Singing what is sung in this book, from the irresistible impulses of
me;
But whether I continue beyond this book, to maturity,
Whether I shall dart forth the true rays, the ones that wait unfired,
(Did you think the sun was shining its brightest?
No--it has not yet fully risen;)
Whether I shall complete what is here started,
Whether I shall attain my own height, to justify these, yet
unfinished,
Whether I shall make THE POEM OF THE NEW WORLD, transcending all
others--depends, rich persons, upon you,
Depends, whoever you are now filling the current Presidentiad, upon
you, 10
Upon you, Governor, Mayor, Congressman,
And you, contemporary America.
Whitman, Walt. 1900. Leaves of Grass.
poem by Walt Whitman
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In America the young are always ready to give to those who are older than themselves the full benefits of their inexperience.
quote by Walt Whitman
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Why are there trees I never walk under but large and melodious thoughts descend upon me?
quote by Walt Whitman
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Come, Said My Soul
Come, said my soul,
Such verses for my body let us write, (For we are One),
That should I after death invisibly return,
Or, long, long hence, in other spheres,
There to some group of mates the chants resuming,
(Tallying Earth's soil, trees, winds, tumultous waves,)
Ever with pleas'd smile I may keep on
Ever and ever to the verses owning - as, first, I here and now,
Signing for soul and body, set them to my name,
Walt Whitman.
poem by Walt Whitman
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Give me the splendid silent sun with all his beams full-dazzling.
quote by Walt Whitman
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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To Foreign Lands
I HEARD that you ask'd for something to prove this puzzle, the New
World,
And to define America, her athletic Democracy;
Therefore I send you my poems, that you behold in them what you
wanted.
poem by Walt Whitman
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No Labor-Saving Machine
NO labor-saving machine,
Nor discovery have I made;
Nor will I be able to leave behind me any wealthy bequest to found a
hospital or library,
Nor reminiscence of any deed of courage, for America,
Nor literary success, nor intellect--nor book for the book-shelf;
Only a few carols, vibrating through the air, I leave,
For comrades and lovers.
poem by Walt Whitman
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To A Common Prostitute
To a Common Prostitute
BE composed--be at ease with me--I am Walt Whitman, liberal and lusty
as Nature;
Not till the sun excludes you, do I exclude you;
Not till the waters refuse to glisten for you, and the leaves to
rustle for you, do my words refuse to glisten and rustle for
you.
My girl, I appoint with you an appointment--and I charge you that you
make preparation to be worthy to meet me,
And I charge you that you be patient and perfect till I come.
Till then, I salute you with a significant look, that you do not
forget me.
poem by Walt Whitman
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To me, every hour of the day and night is an unspeakably perfect miracle.
quote by Walt Whitman
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Speech is the twin of my vision, it is unequal to measure itself, it provokes me forever, it says sarcastically, Walt you contain enough, why don't you let it out then?
quote by Walt Whitman
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Of Him I Love Day And Night
OF him I love day and night, I dream'd I heard he was dead;
And I dream'd I went where they had buried him I love--but he was not
in that place;
And I dream'd I wander'd, searching among burial-places, to find him;
And I found that every place was a burial-place;
The houses full of life were equally full of death, (this house is
now;)
The streets, the shipping, the places of amusement, the Chicago,
Boston, Philadelphia, the Mannahatta, were as full of the dead
as of the living,
And fuller, O vastly fuller, of the dead than of the living;
--And what I dream'd I will henceforth tell to every person and age,
And I stand henceforth bound to what I dream'd;
And now I am willing to disregard burial-places, and dispense with
them; 10
And if the memorials of the dead were put up indifferently
everywhere, even in the room where I eat or sleep, I should be
satisfied;
And if the corpse of any one I love, or if my own corpse, be duly
render'd to powder, and pour'd in the sea, I shall be
satisfied;
Or if it be distributed to the winds, I shall be satisfied.
poem by Walt Whitman
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When I Heard At The Close Of The Day
WHEN I heard at the close of the day how my name had been receiv'd
with plaudits in the capitol, still it was not a happy night
for me that follow'd;
And else, when I carous'd, or when my plans were accomplish'd, still
I was not happy;
But the day when I rose at dawn from the bed of perfect health,
refresh'd, singing, inhaling the ripe breath of autumn,
When I saw the full moon in the west grow pale and disappear in the
morning light,
When I wander'd alone over the beach, and undressing, bathed,
laughing with the cool waters, and saw the sun rise,
And when I thought how my dear friend, my lover, was on his way
coming, O then I was happy;
O then each breath tasted sweeter--and all that day my food nourish'd
me more--and the beautiful day pass'd well,
And the next came with equal joy--and with the next, at evening, came
my friend;
And that night, while all was still, I heard the waters roll slowly
continually up the shores,
I heard the hissing rustle of the liquid and sands, as directed to
me, whispering, to congratulate me, 10
For the one I love most lay sleeping by me under the same cover in
the cool night,
In the stillness, in the autumn moonbeams, his face was inclined
toward me,
And his arm lay lightly around my breast--and that night I was happy.
poem by Walt Whitman
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Here The Frailest Leaves Of Me
HERE the frailest leaves of me, and yet my strongest-lasting:
Here I shade and hide my thoughts--I myself do not expose them,
And yet they expose me more than all my other poems.
poem by Walt Whitman
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Ode to Walt Whitman
By the East River and the Bronx
boys were singing, exposing their waists
with the wheel, with oil, leather, and the hammer.
Ninety thousand miners taking silver from the rocks
and children drawing stairs and perspectives.
But none of them could sleep,
none of them wanted to be the river,
none of them loved the huge leaves
or the shoreline's blue tongue.
By the East River and the Queensboro
boys were battling with industry
and the Jews sold to the river faun
the rose of circumcision,
and over bridges and rooftops, the mouth of the sky emptied
herds of bison driven by the wind.
But none of them paused,
none of them wanted to be a cloud,
none of them looked for ferns
or the yellow wheel of a tambourine.
As soon as the moon rises
the pulleys will spin to alter the sky;
a border of needles will besiege memory
and the coffins will bear away those who don't work.
New York, mire,
New York, mire and death.
What angel is hidden in your cheek?
Whose perfect voice will sing the truths of wheat?
Who, the terrible dream of your stained anemones?
Not for a moment, Walt Whitman, lovely old man,
have I failed to see your beard full of butterflies,
nor your corduroy shoulders frayed by the moon,
nor your thighs pure as Apollo's,
nor your voice like a column of ash,
old man, beautiful as the mist,
you moaned like a bird
with its sex pierced by a needle.
Enemy of the satyr,
enemy of the vine,
and lover of bodies beneath rough cloth...
Not for a moment, virile beauty,
who among mountains of coal, billboards, and railroads,
dreamed of becoming a river and sleeping like a river
with that comrade who would place in your breast
the small ache of an ignorant leopard.
Not for a moment, Adam of blood, Macho,
man alone at sea, Walt Whitman, lovely old man,
because on penthouse roofs,
gathered at bars,
emerging in bunches from the sewers,
trembling between the legs of chauffeurs,
or spinning on dance floors wet with absinthe,
the faggots, Walt Whitman, point you out.
He's one, too! That's right! And they land
on your luminous chaste beard,
blonds from the north, blacks from the sands,
crowds of howls and gestures,
like cats or like snakes,
the faggots, Walt Whitman, the faggots,
clouded with tears, flesh for the whip,
the boot, or the teeth of the lion tamers.
He's one, too! That's right! Stained fingers
point to the shore of your dream
when a friend eats your apple
with a slight taste of gasoline
and the sun sings in the navels
of boys who play under bridges.
But you didn't look for scratched eyes,
nor the darkest swamp where someone submerges children,
nor frozen saliva,
nor the curves slit open like a toad's belly
that the faggots wear in cars and on terraces
while the moon lashes them on the street corners of terror.
You looked for a naked body like a river.
Bull and dream who would join wheel with seaweed,
father of your agony, camellia of your death,
who would groan in the blaze of your hidden equator.
Because it's all right if a man doesn't look for his delight
in tomorrow morning's jungle of blood.
The sky has shores where life is avoided
and there are bodies that shouldn't repeat themselves in the dawn.
Agony, agony, dream, ferment, and dream.
This is the world, my friend, agony, agony.
Bodies decompose beneath the city clocks,
war passes by in tears, followed by a million gray rats,
the rich give their mistresses
small illuminated dying things,
and life is neither noble, nor good, nor sacred.
Man is able, if he wishes, to guide his desire
through a vein of coral or a heavenly naked body.
Tomorrow, loves will become stones, and Time
a breeze that drowses in the branches.
That's why I don't raise my voice, old Walt Whitman,
against the little boy who writes
the name of a girl on his pillow,
nor against the boy who dresses as a bride
in the darkness of the wardrobe,
nor against the solitary men in casinos
who drink prostitution's water with revulsion,
nor against the men with that green look in their eyes
who love other men and burn their lips in silence.
But yes against you, urban faggots,
tumescent flesh and unclean thoughts.
Mothers of mud. Harpies. Sleepless enemies
of the love that bestows crowns of joy.
Always against you, who give boys
drops of foul death with bitter poison.
Always against you,
Fairies of North America,
Pájaros of Havana,
Jotos of Mexico,
Sarasas of Cádiz,
Apios of Seville,
Cancos of Madrid,
Floras of Alicante,
Adelaidas of Portugal.
Faggots of the world, murderers of doves!
Slaves of women. Their bedroom bitches.
Opening in public squares like feverish fans
or ambushed in rigid hemlock landscapes.
No quarter given! Death
spills from your eyes
and gathers gray flowers at the mire's edge.
No quarter given! Attention!
Let the confused, the pure,
the classical, the celebrated, the supplicants
close the doors of the bacchanal to you.
And you, lovely Walt Whitman, stay asleep on the Hudson's banks
with your beard toward the pole, openhanded.
Soft clay or snow, your tongue calls for
comrades to keep watch over your unbodied gazelle.
Sleep on, nothing remains.
Dancing walls stir the prairies
and America drowns itself in machinery and lament.
I want the powerful air from the deepest night
to blow away flowers and inscriptions from the arch where you sleep,
and a black child to inform the gold-craving whites
that the kingdom of grain has arrived.
poem by Federico García Lorca
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The Sobbing Of The Bells
THE sobbing of the bells, the sudden death-news everywhere,
The slumberers rouse, the rapport of the People,
(Full well they know that message in the darkness,
Full well return, respond within their breasts, their brains, the sad
reverberations,)
The passionate toll and clang--city to city, joining, sounding,
passing,
Those heart-beats of a Nation in the night.
poem by Walt Whitman
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Who Wants To Be Lonely
Ooh, you look good tonight
Standing there in your own world
Baby, talk to me with your eyes
Before the moment dies
I want to say to you
Time is just passing us by
You keep waiting for something called love
Wake up in the middle of the night
Nobodys gonna make it alright
Who wants to be lonely, who wants to be with you tonight, oh, oh
Who wants to be lonely, who wants to be holding you tight, oh, oh
Ooh yeah
Open yourself to me
Let me show you what it can be like
Baby, giving it all that youve got
Nothing can hold you back
Some things can stand alone
A mountain can feel no desire
But a heart isnt made out of stone
Wake up in the middle of the night
Nobodys gonna make it alright
Who wants to be lonely, who wants to be with you tonight, oh, oh
Who wants to be lonely, who wants to be holding you tight, oh, oh
Who wants to be lonely, ooh
Who wants to be lonely, all by yourself
Who wants to be lonely, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Wake up in the middle of the night
Nobodys gonna make it alright
I want to say to you
Time is just passing us by
You keep waiting for something called love
Who wants to be lonely, who wants to be with you tonight, oh, oh
Who wants to be lonely, who wants to be holding you tight, oh, oh
(ooh yeah) who wants to be lonely
(yeah) who wants to be with you tonight, oh, oh (tell me tonight)
(yeah) who wants to be lonely (oh yeah)
Who wants to be holding you tight, oh, oh (tell me tonight)
(tell me tonight) who wants to be lonely (yeah)
Who wants to be with you tonight, oh, oh (tell me tonight, tell me)
Who wants to be lonely, who wants to be holding you tight, oh, oh
Who wants to be lonely, who wants to be with you tonight
song performed by by Kiss
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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