A Supermarket In California

Related poetry:

1. Sestina for Jim Cummins In Iowa, Jim dreamed that Della Street was Anne Sexton’s Twin. Dave drew a comic strip called the “Adventures of Whitman,” About a bearded beer-guzzler in Superman uniform. Donna dressed like Wallace Stevens In a seersucker summer suit. To town came Ted Berrigan, Saying, “My idea of a bad poet is Marvin […]...
2. LETTER TO MICHAEL HOROVITZ It is time after thirty years We had our Poetry Renaissance Rise, Children of Albion, rise! It is time after nightmares of sleep When we walked the streets of inner cities Our poems among the burnt-out houses And cars, whispering compassion To the addicts shaking and the homeless Waking and those who have come apart […]...
3. Go, Valentine Go, Valentine, and tell that lovely maid Whom fancy still will portray to my sight, How here I linger in this sullen shade, This dreary gloom of dull monastic night; Say, that every joy of life remote At evening’s closing hour I quit the throng, Listening in solitude the ring-dome’s note, Who pours like me […]...
4. A Pact I make a pact with you, Walt Whitman I have detested you long enough. I come to you as a grown child Who has had a pig-headed father; I am old enough now to make friends. It was you that broke the new wood, Now is a time for carving. We have one sap and […]...
5. Interior IN the cool of the night time The clocks pick off the points And the mainsprings loosen. They will need winding. One of these days… they will need winding. Rabelais in red boards, Walt Whitman in green, Hugo in ten-cent paper covers, Here they stand on shelves In the cool of the night time And […]...
6. Saddest Poem I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. Write, for instance: “The night is full of stars, And the stars, blue, shiver in the distance.” The night wind whirls in the sky and sings. I can write the saddest poem of all tonight. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. On nights […]...
7. I Know, You Walk I walk so often, late, along the streets, Lower my gaze, and hurry, full of dread, Suddenly, silently, you still might rise And I would have to gaze on all your grief With my own eyes, While you demand your happiness, that’s dead. I know, you walk beyond me, every night, With a coy footfall, […]...
8. Sonnet 01 Go Valentine and tell that lovely maid Whom Fancy still will pourtray to my sight, How her Bard lingers in this sullen shade, This dreary gloom of dull monastic night. Say that from every joy of life remote At evening’s closing hour he quits the throng, Listening alone the ring-dove’s plaintive note Who pours like […]...
9. Making The Lion For All It's Got A Ballad I came home and found a lion in my room… [First draft of “The Lion for Real” CP 174-175] A lion met America In the road They stared at each other Two figures on the crossroads in the desert. America screamed The lion roared They leaped at each other America desperate to win Fighting with […]...
10. America America I’ve given you all and now I’m nothing. America two dollars and twentyseven cents January 17, 1956. I can’t stand my own mind. America when will we end the human war? Go fuck yourself with your atom bomb. I don’t feel good don’t bother me. I won’t write my poem till I’m in my […]...
11. In California During the Gulf War Among the blight-killed eucalypts, among Trees and bushes rusted by Christmas frosts, The yards and hillsides exhausted by five years of drought, Certain airy white blossoms punctually Reappeared, and dense clusters of pale pink, dark pink A delicate abundance. They seemed Like guests arriving joyfully on the accustomed Festival day, unaware of the year’s events, […]...
12. Tonight I Can Write Tonight I can write the saddest lines. Write, for example, ‘The night is starry And the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.’ The night wind revolves in the sky and sings. Tonight I can write the saddest lines. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. Through nights like this one I […]...
13. To a Common Prostitute BE composed-be at ease with me-I am Walt Whitman, liberal and lusty as Nature; Not till the sun excludes you, do I exclude you; Not till the waters refuse to glisten for you, and the leaves to rustle for you, do my words refuse to glisten and rustle for you. My girl, I appoint with […]...
14. California Plush The only thing I miss about Los Angeles Is the Hollywood Freeway at midnight, windows down and Radio blaring Bearing right into the center of the city, the Capitol Tower On the right, and beyond it, Hollywood Boulevard Blazing pimps, surplus stores, footprints of the stars descending through the city fast as the law would […]...
15. A Form Of Women I have come far enough From where I was not before To have seen the things Looking in at me from through the open door And have walked tonight By myself To see the moonlight And see it as trees And shapes more fearful Because I feared What I did not know But have wanted […]...
16. Dreams While on my lonely couch I lie, I seldom feel myself alone, For fancy fills my dreaming eye With scenes and pleasures of its own. Then I may cherish at my breast An infant’s form beloved and fair, May smile and soothe it into rest With all a Mother’s fondest care. How sweet to feel […]...
17. Duddingstone WITH caws and chirrupings, the woods In this thin sun rejoice. The Psalm seems but the little kirk That sings with its own voice. The cloud-rifts share their amber light With the surface of the mere – I think the very stones are glad To feel each other near. Once more my whole heart leaps […]...
18. December Night The cold slope is standing in darkness But the south of the trees is dry to the touch The heavy limbs climb into the moonlight bearing feathers I came to watch these White plants older at night The oldest Come first to the ruins And I hear magpies kept awake by the moon The water […]...
19. Eat Your Heart Out I’ve come by, she says, to tell you That this is it. I’m not kidding, it’s Over. this is it. I sit on the couch watching her arrange Her long red hair before my bedroom Mirror. She pulls her hair up and Piles it on top of her head- She lets her eyes look at […]...
20. A Promise to California A PROMISE to California, Also to the great Pastoral Plains, and for Oregon: Sojourning east a while longer, soon I travel toward you, to remain, to teach robust American love; For I know very well that I and robust love belong among you, inland, and along the Western Sea; For These States tend inland, and […]...
21. At the California Institute of Technology I don’t care how God-damn smart These guys are: I’m bored. It’s been raining like hell all day long And there’s nothing to do. Written January 24, 1967 While poet-in-residence at The California Institute of Technology....
22. Prospect NSW (For Anita Cobby) The hushed dark hugs the streets. Somewhere a cat snaps the silence. Dogs begin to bark, like a pack moving in for the kill. Women shrink in their homes. Shadows slip through the night and stars dim their lights as cars flash past. When they disappear, silence, heavy as hate, descends. Hours stretch like elastic […]...
23. Sonnet VI: Is It to Love Is it to love, to fix the tender gaze, To hide the timid blush, and steal away; To shun the busy world, and waste the day In some rude mountain’s solitary maze? Is it to chant one name in ceaseless lays, To hear no words that other tongues can say, To watch the pale moon’s […]...
24. By A Swimming Pool Outside Syracusa All afternoon I have been struggling To communicate in Italian With Roberto and Giuseppe, who have begun To resemble the two male characters In my Italian for Beginners, The ones who are always shopping Or inquiring about the times of trains, And now I can hardly speak or write English. I have made important pronouncements […]...
25. MID-DECEMBER A full moon shines Over the morning frost; The lanes are full of late-fallen leaves; Walking across the mulch Is almost as tricky As treading over ice. In town the carol-singers are in Crowding the shopping-mall, While a group of muffled musicians Play by the outside market. This year but two robins On the early […]...
26. Oh! That We Two Were Maying 1 Oh! that we two were Maying 2 Down the stream of the soft spring breeze; 3 Like children with violets playing 4 In the shade of the whispering trees. 5 Oh! that we two sat dreaming 6 On the sward of some sheep-trimmed down, 7 Watching the white mist steaming 8 Over river and […]...
27. Peace on Earth He took a frayed hat from his head, And “Peace on Earth” was what he said. “A morsel out of what you’re worth, And there we have it: Peace on Earth. Not much, although a little more Than what there was on earth before I’m as you see, I’m Ichabod,- But never mind the ways […]...
28. It sounded as if the Streets were running It sounded as if the Streets were running And then the Streets stood still Eclipse was all we could see at the Window And Awe was all we could feel. By and by the boldest stole out of his Covert To see if Time was there Nature was in an Opal Apron, Mixing fresher Air....
29. What Lips My Lips Have Kissed, And Where, And Why (Sonnet XLIII) What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why, I have forgotten, and what arms have lain Under my head till morning; but the rain Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh Upon the glass and listen for reply, And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain For unremembered lads that […]...
30. At Nightfall The dark is coming o’er the world, my playmate, And the fields where poplars stand are very still, All our groves of green delight have been invaded, There are voices quite unknown upon the hill; The wind has grown too weary for a comrade, It is keening in the rushes spent and low, Let us […]...
31. The Left Bank Don’t walk away, Renee, I’m just getting warmed up Your body is like a river And I’m going to swim across I want to explore the left Bank of you then the right You’re the only woman in This room with a sunflower In her hair and you take Forever in the bathroom Making me […]...
32. The Importance Of Elsewhere Lonely in Ireland, since it was not home, Strangeness made sense. The salt rebuff of speech, Insisting so on difference, made me welcome: Once that was recognised, we were in touch Their draughty streets, end-on to hills, the faint Archaic smell of dockland, like a stable, The herring-hawker’s cry, dwindling, went To prove me separate, […]...
33. Cosmopolitan Greetings To Struga Festival Golden Wreath Laureates & International Bards 1986 Stand up against governments, against God. Stay irresponsible. Say only what we know & imagine. Absolutes are coercion. Change is absolute. Ordinary mind includes eternal perceptions. Observe what’s vivid. Notice what you notice. Catch yourself thinking. Vividness is self-selecting. If we don’t show anyone, we’re […]...
34. Rainy Night Ghosts of all my lovely sins, Who attend too well my pillow, Gay the wanton rain begins; Hide the limp and tearful willow. Turn aside your eyes and ears, Trail away your robes of sorrow, You shall have my further years- You shall walk with me tomorrow. I am sister to the rain; Fey and […]...
35. A Mile With Me O who will walk a mile with me Along life’s merry way? A comrade blithe and full of glee, Who dares to laugh out loud and free, And let his frolic fancy play, Like a happy child, through the flowers gay That fill the field and fringe the way Where he walks a mile with […]...
36. Safe-home don’t be so lazy maisie maisie Don’t be so lazy please I know it’s snowing And a hard wind’s blowing But nobody knows At the rate we’re going What time we’ll get home tonight Keep to the path for me timothy timothy Keep to the path for me please My legs are aching And my […]...
37. Cantico del Sole The thought of what America would be like If the Classics had a wide circulation Troubles my sleep, The thought of what America, The thought of what America, The thought of what America would be like If the Classics had a wide circulation Troubles my sleep. Nunc dimittis, now lettest thou thy servant, Now lettest […]...
38. Prayer In Bad Weather by God, I don’t know what to Do. They’re so nice to have around. They have a way of playing with The balls And looking at the cock very Seriously Turning it Tweeking it Examining each part As their long hair falls on Your belly. It’s not the fucking and sucking Alone that reaches into […]...
39. The Oxen Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock. “Now they are all on their knees,” An elder said as we sat in a flock By the embers in hearthside ease. We pictured the meek mild creatures where They dwelt in their strawy pen, Nor did it occur to one of us there To doubt they were […]...
40. Nocturne III One night One night all full of murmurings, of perfumes and music of wings; One night In which fantastic fireflies burnt in the humid nuptial shadows, Slowly by my side, pressed altogether close, silent and pale, As if a presentiment of infinite bitternesses Agitated you unto the most hidden fibers of your being, Along the […]...