A Promise to California

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1. Promise This When You be Dying Promise This When You be Dying Some shall summon Me Mine belong Your latest Sighing Mine to Belt Your Eye Not with Coins though they be Minted From an Emperor’s Hand Be my lips the only Buckle Your low Eyes demand Mine to stay when all have wandered To devise once more If the Life […]...
2. 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 […]...
3. Sonnet 34: Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day And make me travel forth without my cloak, To let base clouds o’ertake me in my way, Hiding thy brav’ry in their rotten smoke? ‘Tis not enough that through the cloud thou break, To dry the rain on my storm-beaten face, For no man well of such […]...
4. 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, […]...
5. To Promise Is One Thing To Keep It, Another JOHN courts Perrette; but all in vain; Love’s sweetest oaths, and tears, and sighs All potent spells her heart to gain The ardent lover vainly tries: Fruitless his arts to make her waver, She will not grant the smallest favour: A ruse our youth resolved to try The cruel air to mollify: Holding his fingers […]...
6. I hear it was Charged against Me I HEAR it was charged against me that I sought to destroy institutions; But really I am neither for nor against institutions; (What indeed have I in common with them?-Or what with the destruction of them?) Only I will establish in the Mannahatta, and in every city of These States, inland and seaboard, And in […]...
7. A Supermarket In California What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whit – Man, 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 fam […]...
8. PROMISE Bhaskar Roy Barman The scene lacked for the manifestation Characteristic of a scene. Though the scene was promised a revealing A plethora of manifestations that remained over. In other scenes manifestations reveal themselves Of necessity when called for. No messenger from on high did descend To bestow upon it an afflatus for creation. It was […]...
9. Not the Pilot NOT the pilot has charged himself to bring his ship into port, though beaten back, and many times baffled; Not the path-finder, penetrating inland, weary and long, By deserts parch’d, snows-chill’d, rivers wet, perseveres till he reaches his destination, More than I have charged myself, heeded or unheeded, to compose a free march for These […]...
10. 16-bit Intel 8088 chip with an Apple Macintosh You can’t run Radio Shack programs In its disc drive. Nor can a Commodore 64 Drive read a file You have created on an IBM Personal Computer. Both Kaypro and Osborne computers use The CP/M operating system But can’t read each other’s Handwriting For they format (write On) discs in different […]...
11. 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....
12. Promise Of Peace The heads of strong old age are beautiful Beyond all grace of youth. They have strange quiet, Integrity, health, soundness, to the full They’ve dealt with life and been tempered by it. A young man must not sleep; his years are war, Civil and foreign but the former’s worse; But the old can breathe in […]...
13. The Promise of Sleep Put the sweet thoughts from out thy mind, The dreams from out thy breast; No joy for thee but thou shalt find Thy rest All day I could not work for woe, I could not work nor rest; The trouble drove me to and fro, Like a leaf on the storm’s breast. Night came and […]...
14. Unnamed Lands NATIONS ten thousand years before These States, and many times ten thousand years before These States; Garner’d clusters of ages, that men and women like us grew up and travel’d their course, and pass’d on; What vast-built cities—what orderly republics—what pastoral tribes and nomads; What histories, rulers, heroes, perhaps transcending all others; What laws, customs, […]...
15. The Promise of the Morning Star Thou father of the children of my brain By thee engendered in my willing heart, How can I thank thee for this gift of art Poured out so lavishly, and not in vain. What thou created never more can die, Thy fructifying power lives in me And I conceive, knowing it is by thee, Dear […]...
16. To The States WHY reclining, interrogating? Why myself and all drowsing? What deepening twilight! scum floating atop of the waters! Who are they, as bats and night-dogs, askant in the Capitol? What a filthy Presidentiad! (O south, your torrid suns! O north, your arctic freezings!) Are those really Congressmen? are those the great Judges? is that the President? […]...
17. Mrs. Purkapile He ran away and was gone for a year. When he came home he told me the silly story Of being kidnapped by pirates on Lake Michigan And kept in chains so he could not write me. I pretended to believe it, though I knew very well What he was doing, and that he met […]...
18. To a President ALL you are doing and saying is to America dangled mirages, You have not learn’d of Nature-of the politics of Nature, you have not learn’d the great amplitude, rectitude, impartiality; You have not seen that only such as they are for These States, And that what is less than they, must sooner or later lift […]...
19. Scented Herbage of My Breast SCENTED herbage of my breast, Leaves from you I yield, I write, to be perused best afterwards, Tomb-leaves, body-leaves, growing up above me, above death, Perennial roots, tall leaves-O the winter shall not freeze you, delicate leaves, Every year shall you bloom again-out from where you retired, you shall emerge again; O I do not […]...
20. Me Imperturbe ME imperturbe, standing at ease in Nature, Master of all, or mistress of all-aplomb in the midst of irrational things, Imbued as they-passive, receptive, silent as they, Finding my occupation, poverty, notoriety, foibles, crimes, less important than I thought; Me private, or public, or menial, or solitary-all these subordinate, (I am eternally equal with the […]...
21. On Journeys Through The States ON journeys through the States we start, (Ay, through the world-urged by these songs, Sailing henceforth to every land-to every sea;) We, willing learners of all, teachers of all, and lovers of all. We have watch’d the seasons dispensing themselves, and passing on, We have said, Why should not a man or woman do as […]...
22. Walt Whitman's Caution TO The States, or any one of them, or any city of The States, Resist much, obey little; Once unquestioning obedience, once fully enslaved; Once fully enslaved, no nation, state, city, of this earth, ever afterward resumes its liberty....
23. To the Western Wind SWEET western wind, whose luck it is, Made rival with the air, To give Perenna’s lip a kiss, And fan her wanton hair: Bring me but one, I’ll promise thee, Instead of common showers, Thy wings shall be embalm’d by me, And all beset with flowers....
24. A Curse For A Nation I heard an angel speak last night, And he said ‘Write! Write a Nation’s curse for me, And send it over the Western Sea.’ I faltered, taking up the word: ‘Not so, my lord! If curses must be, choose another To send thy curse against my brother. ‘For I am bound by gratitude, By love […]...
25. From Paumanok Starting FROM Paumanock starting, I fly like a bird, Around and around to soar, to sing the idea of all; To the north betaking myself, to sing there arctic songs, To Kanada, till I absorb Kanada in myself-to Michigan then, To Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, to sing their songs, (they are inimitable;) Then to Ohio and Indiana […]...
26. I Dream'd in a Dream I DREAM’D in a dream, I saw a city invincible to the attacks of the whole of the rest of the earth; I dream’d that was the new City of Friends; Nothing was greater there than the quality of robust love-it led the rest; It was seen every hour in the actions of the men […]...
27. Behold this Swarthy Face BEHOLD this swarthy face-these gray eyes, This beard-the white wool, unclipt upon my neck, My brown hands, and the silent manner of me, without charm; Yet comes one, a Manhattanese, and ever at parting, kisses me lightly on the lips with robust love, And I, on the crossing of the street, or on the ship’s […]...
28. Behavior BEHAVIOR-fresh, native, copious, each one for himself or herself, Nature and the Soul expressed-America and freedom expressed-In it the finest art, In it pride, cleanliness, sympathy, to have their chance, In it physique, intellect, faith-in it just as much as to manage an army or a city, or to write a book-perhaps more, The youth, […]...
29. On First Looking Into Chapman's Homer Much have I travell’d in the realms of gold, And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; Round many western islands have I been Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. Oft of one wide expanse had I been told That deep-brow’d Homer ruled as his demesne; Yet did I never breathe its pure serene Till […]...
30. Poem of Remembrance for a Girl or a Boy YOU just maturing youth! You male or female! Remember the organic compact of These States, Remember the pledge of the Old Thirteen thenceforward to the rights, life, liberty, equality of man, Remember what was promulged by the founders, ratified by The States, signed in black and white by the Commissioners, and read by Washington at […]...
31. How many schemes may die How many schemes may die In one short Afternoon Entirely unknown To those they most concern The man that was not lost Because by accident He varied by a Ribbon’s width From his accustomed route The Love that would not try Because beside the Door It must be competitions Some unsuspecting Horse was tied Surveying […]...
32. The Oldest Song “These were never your true love’s eyes. Why do you feign that you love them? You that broke from their constancies, And the wide calm brows above them! This was never your true love’s speech. Why do you thrill when you hear it? You that have ridden out of its reach The width of the […]...
33. Sonnet 38 – First time he kissed me, he but only kissed First time he kissed me, he but only kissed The fingers of this hand wherewith I write; And ever since, it grew more clean and white, Slow to world-greetings, quick with its ‘Oh, list,’ When the angels speak. A ring of amethyst I could not wear here, plainer to my sight, Than that first kiss. […]...
34. Unlyric Love Song It is time to give that-of-myself which I could not at first: To offer you now at last my least and my worst: Minor, absurd preserves, The shell’s end-curves, A document kept at the back of a drawer, A tin hidden under the floor, Recalcitrant prides and hesitations: To pile them carefully in a desparate […]...
35. The Argument Of His Book I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds, and bowers, Of April, May, of June, and July-flowers. I sing of May-poles, hock-carts, wassails, wakes, Of bridegrooms, brides, and of their bridal-cakes. I write of youth, of love, and have access By these to sing of cleanly wantonness. I sing of dews, of rains, and piece by […]...
36. Hymn 113 Abraham’s blessing on the Gentiles. Gen. 17:7; Rom. 15:8; Mk 10:14. How large the promise, how divine, To Abram and his seed! “I’ll be a God to thee and thine, Supplying all their need.” The words of his extensive love From age to age endure; The Angel of the cov’nant proves, And seals the blessing […]...
37. He ate and drank the precious Words He ate and drank the precious Words His Spirit grew robust He knew no more that he was poor, Nor that his frame was Dust He danced along the dingy Days And this Bequest of Wings Was but a Book What Liberty A loosened spirit brings...
38. A Woman Waits for Me A WOMAN waits for me-she contains all, nothing is lacking, Yet all were lacking, if sex were lacking, or if the moisture of the right man were lacking. Sex contains all, Bodies, Souls, meanings, proofs, purities, delicacies, results, promulgations, Songs, commands, health, pride, the maternal mystery, the seminal milk; All hopes, benefactions, bestowals, All the […]...
39. Inland People that build their houses inland, People that buy a plot of ground Shaped like a house, and build a house there, Far from the sea-board, far from the sound Of water sucking the hollow ledges, Tons of water striking the shore,- What do they long for, as I long for One salt smell of […]...
40. To the East and to the West TO the East and to the West; To the man of the Seaside State, and of Pennsylvania, To the Kanadian of the North-to the Southerner I love; These, with perfect trust, to depict you as myself-the germs are in all men; I believe the main purport of These States is to found a superb friendship, […]...