Poetry Breaks: Allen Ginsberg Reads "A Supermarket in California"

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ALLEN GINSBERG: I was living out in California,

got up middle of the night and went out to get some milk.

So I went to 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 from Honduras?

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,

possessing every frozen delicacy in our solitary

fancy tasting artichokes 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?

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?

[MUSIC]