Halcyon

Calmed by the voice of my protagonist

Allen Ginsberg;

Reading so calmly

His creation

That for decades to come

Would let so many hang off

Every word he speaks....

A Supermarket in California

Allen Ginsberg

What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman,
For I walked down the side streets 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?

My eyes are musky peanut shells of tiredness

Ready to be gouged by the feverish elation of the night

That soon is to set eyes on me.

How I love thee world,

That you can cross my paths

With Ginsberg, Gibran and gibberish

Inherent in the banter of my youthful friends

Exposed in their inquisition for truth,

Viscerally child like in vulnerability ;

Walking upon shaky ground that has been tread so often

But,

Will be tread as pioneers.

I think of you M,

Who escaped my grasp so easily,

Without a Reminisce

A virtual adieu

Unsatisfied.