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?
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How intersting a shopping trip is this? Meeting with Lorca and Whitman in the same supermarket - In his dreams and imaginations of course. An interesting point of view though seeing women and babies in the fruit and vegetable ailes
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the spin on whitman
quite humorous, actually. I've read leaves of grass so many times I've lost count and these phrases are absolutely recognizable. There is a book called Lincoln and Whitman: Parallel Lives in Civil War Washington. Quite illuminating. Very excellent. Whitman was America's only conscious poet. Whilst Lincoln was America's only conscious president. -
Yes, What have we lost America? What meadows of Whitman’s poems where the city and the country couldn’t be separated from the smell of manure and hay? What Highways traveled by Kerouac where people had time for conversation and stories? Now, if you can find a box car the doors are always closed, and all the landscape has been carved and reshaped, making room for a neatly tailored McDonalds parking lot. Aw what the hell, let’s just keep writing!
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Beelzbub, how do the fruits and veggies objectify the wives and babies?
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I find it fascinating how, no matter the overt subject matter, Ginsberg always includes a covert 'story' of sorts.
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Abby Eyeball, I don't think you really read Ginsberg's poem. The supermarket is not supposed to be alluring, it is symbolic of America's decline and the reason the speaker in the poem goes into the supermarket is because he is looking for answers; and the purpose of the description of the vegetables and such was to objectify the husbands and wives. But you're right,poems that posess vivid and vibrant diction are neat!
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This is one of my favorite poems. I am so glad that you used this as an example of an apostrophe poem!
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I must say that I'm not into Walt Whitman, and haven't heard of Allen Ginsberg, until now, but this piece was remarkable. I loved the descriptions given in this piece, especially talking about everyday normal things, like shopping. My favorite words were: neon- describing the market's allure, and the different food talked of: vegetables, fruits, and meat. If there's anything that gives life to a poem, it is taking a piece out of life itself, and writing about it in words that describe something already possesing color and texture as vibrant as it sounds...
Abby Eyeball
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It is as if Ginsberg is speaking right to Whitman, and that is why this is considered an apostrophe poem.
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