straight back to the right hand side

what've i been doing? how far have i strayed? i look again and find you're nowhere near where i left you, where we left off. like a squirrel that returns in anticipation of a season's labour, i thought i could pick you up again. i thought i could savour your sweet smell again. but i have gone too far, spinning circles around you, the next one further than the last. now i want to go straight back to you, but the circles, i am caught in the circles i have spun myself. where are you? are you still there? are you still mine? 24 was a dream not too long ago, but now it's nothing but yellowed memory. oh no.

the rhythm of my footsteps crossing flatlands to your door/ have been silenced forever more/ the distance is quite simply much too far for me to row/ it seems farther than ever before


A Supermarket in California, by Allen Ginsberg

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-
ilies 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 ofthe 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?