Joan Mitchell, Untitled, 1960

"A Supermarket in Caligfornia"  

By ALLEN GINSBERG

    

     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, García 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 a 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?

Editor's Note: Students were asked to pair a poem and painting with no explanation of the connection.