A Supermarket in California
Allen Ginsberg
What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, forI walked down the sidestreets under the trees with a headacheself-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!5
What peaches and what penumbras!Whole familiesshopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in theavocados, babies in the tomatoes!--and you, Garcia Lorca, whatwere 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 groceryboys. 10
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.15
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?20
(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.25
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 boat30
disappear on the black waters of Lethe?
Berkeley, 1955
Ferlinghetti, Lawrence.:I am Waiting [from A Coney Island of the Mind (1958)], New Directions
1Iamwaiting for my case to come up
2 and I am waiting
3 for a rebirth of wonder
4 and I am waiting for someone
5 to really discover America
6 and wail
7 and I am waiting
8 for the discovery
9 of a new symbolic western frontier
10 and I am waiting
11 for the American Eagle
12 to really spread its wings
13 and straighten up and fly right
14 and I am waiting
15 for the Age of Anxiety
16 to drop dead
17 and I am waiting
18 for the war to be fought
19 which will make the world safe
20 for anarchy
21 and I am waiting
22 for the final withering away
23 of all governments
24 and I am perpetually awaiting
25 a rebirth of wonder
26 I am waiting for the Second Coming
27 and I am waiting
28 for a religious revival
29 to sweep thru the state of Arizona
30 and I am waiting
31 for the Grapes of Wrath to be stored
32 and I am waiting
33 for them to prove
34 that God is really American
35 and I am seriously waiting
36 for Billy Graham and Elvis Presley
37 to exchange roles seriously
38 and I am waiting
39 to see God on television
40 piped onto church altars
41 if only they can find
42 the right channel
43 to tune in on
44 and I am waiting
45 for the Last Supper to be served again
46 with a strange new appetizer
47 and I am perpetually awaiting
48 a rebirth of wonder
49 I am waiting for my number to be called
50 and I am waiting
51 for the living end
52 and I am waiting
53 for dad to come home
54 his pockets full
55 of irradiated silver dollars
56 and I am waiting
57 for the atomic tests to end
58 and I am waiting happily
59 for things to get much worse
60 before they improve
61 and I am waiting
62 for the Salvation Army to take over
63 and I am waiting
64 for the human crowd
65 to wander off a cliff somewhere
66 clutching its atomic umbrella
67 and I am waiting
68 for Ike to act
69 and I am waiting
70 for the meek to be blessed
71 and inherit the earth
72 without taxes
73 and I am waiting
74 for forests and animals
75 to reclaim the earth as theirs
76 and I am waiting
77 for a way to be devised
78 to destroy all nationalisms
79 without killing anybody
80 and I am waiting
81 for linnets and planets to fall like rain
82 and I am waiting for lovers and weepers
83 to lie down together again
84 in a new rebirth of wonder
85 I am waiting for the Great Divide to be crossed
86 and I am anxiously waiting
87 for the secret of eternal life to be discovered
88 by an obscure general practitioner
89 and save me forever from certain death
90 and I am waiting
91 for life to begin
92 and I am waiting
93 for the storms of life
94 to be over
95 and I am waiting
96 to set sail for happiness
97 and I am waiting
98 for a reconstructed Mayflower
99 to reach America
100 with its picture story and tv rights
101 sold in advance to the natives
102 and I am waiting
103 for the lost music to sound again
104 in the Lost Continent
105 in a new rebirth of wonder
106 I am waiting for the day
107 that maketh all things clear
108 and I am waiting
109 for Ole Man River
110 to just stop rolling along
111 past the country club
112 and I am waiting
113 for the deepest South
114 to just stop Reconstructing itself
115 in its own image
116 and I am waiting
117 for a sweet desegregated chariot
118 to swing low
119 and carry me back to Ole Virginie
120 and I am waiting
121 for Ole Virginie to discover
122 just why Darkies are born
123 and I am waiting
124 for God to lookout
125 from Lookout Mountain
126 and see the Ode to the Confederate Dead
127 as a real farce
128 and I am awaiting retribution
129 for what America did
130 to Tom Sawyer
131 and I am perpetually awaiting
132 a rebirth of wonder
133 I am waiting for Tom Swift to grow up
134 and I am waiting
135 for the American Boy
136 to take off Beauty's clothes
137 and get on top of her
138 and I am waiting
139 for Alice in Wonderland
140 to retransmit to me
141 her total dream of innocence
142 and I am waiting
143 for Childe Roland to come
144 to the final darkest tower
145 and I am waiting
146 for Aphrodite
147 to grow live arms
148 at a final disarmament conference
149 in a new rebirth of wonder
150 I am waiting
151 to get some intimations
152 of immortality
153 by recollecting my early childhood
154 and I am waiting
155 for the green mornings to come again
156 youth's dumb green fields come back again
157 and I am waiting
158 for some strains of unpremeditated art
159 to shake my typewriter
160 and I am waiting to write
161 the great indelible poem
162 and I am waiting
163 for the last long careless rapture
164 and I am perpetually waiting
165 for the fleeing lovers on the Grecian Urn
166 to catch each other up at last
167 and embrace
168 and I am awaiting
169 perpetually and forever
170 a renaissance of wonder
Copyright © 1958 by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Copyright © 1955 by Lawrence Ferlinghetti.