Vox Populi
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Allen Ginsberg: A Supermarket in California
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 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?
Berkeley, 1955
Copyright Allen Ginsberg 1956. “A Supermarket in California” was written in Berkeley, California in 1955 and was published in Ginsberg’s Howl and Other Poems (1956).
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This poem is so right on!
Thankyou Messrs Ginsburg and Simms!
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Thanks, Sean!
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One of my all-time favorite poems. Thanks for posting it, Michael.
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Thanks, Charlie. One of my favorites as well.
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Takes me back to college, 52 years ago when I first read the poem and foiund it shocking. Now, I think that every American poet has to make peace with Whitman, which I think is part of the poem.
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Yes, I encountered Ginsberg when I was an undergrad. It was like discovering a mountain in my backyard.
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What an epiphany. I didn’t know this. I grew up with different poets in a different language. This is just wonderful, had never come across this one.Thank you Michael.
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Thanks Rose Mary. I can’t tell you how much it thrills me to introduce Ginsberg to you. He is a monument of American poetry.
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Yes, and I’ll read more of his work. So far I only read a poem by him here or there…
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Oh that last stanza – I didn’t know this poem — and am so happy to know it now!
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Perfect for this morning
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Thanks, Luray. I love Ginsberg. He was one of the first poets I “got” when I was a teenager.
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Yes. I needed just this this morning.
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