minorthird

I used to write poetry. I don’t do it anymore. I leave it up to people who really can…

“A Supermarket in California” by Allen Ginsburg
What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, 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 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 the 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?

“whitman silenced on city streets” by erika-renee lanier
silent train stations don’t welcome
footsteps, loud, echoing off prophetic
walls and turnstiles that spit you
out on rainy city streets. Arriving
in the middle of the night left no one to jump
at the sound of your voice,
no one shouting over crowds of people
unfamiliar even to the brush of your shoulder,
left lonely by your search for cigarettes
when they tell you their stories,
no one to take your bag and repeat,
with admiration, your silence.

I hang my head and watch the feet
of strangers run past me. There are
no children under moons to lie in grasses,
to question things you and I only
once saw in glances, in mirrors on
bathroom walls in ritzy hotels, in
men waiting with paid checks, in
each other. The reflections, their
eyes, the waiters knocking over
empty wine glasses, the music-
our voices, swallowed whole,
limb and thoughts together.

Your steps echo and break my silence.
I look up from the porch and take
your bags, your body singing a
haunting melody that leaves an ache
reverberating through the night,
touching my hand and bringing it to
my lips. Your name falls, an utterance
willed to me through a hunger familiar
only to trains rushing through an
impartial night, whistles lost on
sleeping ears and humming electric wires.

“The Eleven” by Robert Hunter
No more time to tell how
This is the season of what
Now is the time of returning
With thought jewels polished and gleaming

Now is the time past believing
The child has relinquished the reign
Now is the test of the boomerang
Tossed in the night of redeeming

Eight sided whispering hallelujah hatrack
Seven faced marble eye transitory dream doll
six proud walkers on jinglebell rainbow
Five men writing in fingers of gold
Four men tracking down the great white sperm whale
Three girls wait in a foreign dominion
Ride in the whale belly
Fade away in moonlight
Sink beneath the waters
to the coral sand below
Now is the time of returning

This entry was posted on Friday, April 30th, 2004 at 3:43 pm and is filed under blogocosm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.