WALT WHITMAN & APPLES.

THINKS SHE SEES WALT WHITMAN IN A SUPER MARKET STORE.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Walt Whitman was picking
Apples out in the supermarket
Store, or so you thought you

 

Saw and stood and stared all
Awkward and scared. Such
Eyes and beard and hat and

 

The fingers turning over the
Apple rubbing the thumb over
The green flesh, bringing to

 

His nose and sniffing through
The huge moustache the apple’s
Scent. You stood a little back

 

Just beside the cans of beer
And bottled wine, watching
His every movement, his hat

 

And clothes, the way he slowly
Peered about with steady stare,
The hugeness, the larger than

 

Life just standing there with
One solitary apple held in view,
Offering it outward, saying to

 

You, take a bite lady, sure
Looks good, tell me what you
Think of the apple’s taste and

 

Smell and taking the apple to
Your mouth to bite with awkward
Care and looked up to say, it’s

 

Fine, but he wasn’t there, just
A sense of emptiness with scent
Of apples on the morning air.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reviews

[just rose.]

What echoes of Ginsberg's "In A Supermarket in California!" Love the irony suggested by that. I live just across the river from Whitman's Camden, and so I feel in some ways that I am in his shadow all the time. The lilacs are blooming now, so there he is again. You know, he was a poet who saw simultaneously both individual and collective, and the dance and interplay between the two; his is a sense of alienation and acceptance both, and we can only stand like the woman in your poem and marvel at his being, the precision of care within the smallest detail, and all at once ephemeral and enduring.

[Terry Collett]

Thank you.

[Coyote Poetry]

I like this poem. I was lucky when I was in the Army. Sent me the California coast. I drank in many places where Hemingway got drunk. I was looking for him. I never saw him. Poem is wonderful. Make me wish I did. A excellent poem.
Coyote

[Terry Collett]

Thank you.