It lies next to bed, pages face down
on the floor. Duct tape holds the tattered
covers together. It had ventured on silent
retreats in the woods to afternoons in Buddhist
meditation gardens. It was in her backpack when
she climbed Incan ruins in Peru, again when she
wandered gorges in Denver, and hugged trees in
Golden Gate Park. The day she was pickpocketed
in a busy Beijing market, almost all her Yuan
was crammed safely between its pages.
But she loved it most when it passed weeks
on the nightstand in Wisconsin
and they would read a little to each other while
the afternoon faded away and she made excuses to stay.
* * *
No poems this weekend. I'll be out of internet range for the remainder of the weekend. The poems for Saturday and Sunday are "A Supermarket in California" (narrative and imagery) and some bits from Robert Lax's "Twenty-Five Episodes" (God). I can only hope for something like Ginsburg's imagery and Lax's clarity (and beauty).
Enjoy these. They're good ones.
* * *
"Supermarket in Califronia"
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 neonfruit 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, 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 a hour.Which way does your beard point tonight?
(I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the supermarket andfeel absurd.)
Will we walk all night through solitary streets? The trees add shadet o shade, lights out in the houses, we'll both be lonely.
Will we stroll dreaming of the lost America of love past blue automo-biles 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?
* * *
i.
Robert Lax
i.
he sat
on the edge of his bed
all night
day came & he continued to sit there
he thought he would never be able
to understand
what had happened
xi.
Robert Lax
xi.
the angel came to him & said
I’m sorry, mac, but
we talked it over
in heaven
& you’re going to have to live
a thousand years
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