Two Poems by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

  Underwear

  I didn't get much sleep last night

  thinking about underwear

  Have you ever stopped to consider

  underwear in the abstract

  When you really dig into it

  some shocking problems are raised

  Underwear is something

  we all have to deal with

  Everyone wears

  some kind of underwear

  Even Indians wear underwear

  Even Cubans

  wear underwear

  The Pope wears underwear I hope

  Underwear is worn by Negroes

  The Governor of Louisiana

  wears underwear

  I saw him on TV

  He must have had tight underwear

  He squirmed a lot

  Underwear can really get you in a bind

  Negroes often wear white underwear

  which may lead to trouble

  You have seen the underwear ads

  for men and women

  so alike but so different

  Women's underwear holds things up

  Men's underwear holds things down

  Underwear is one thing

  men and women have in common

  Underwear is all we have between us

  You have seen the three-color pictures

  with crotches encircled

  to show the areas of extra strength

  and three-way stretch

  promising full freedom of action

  Don't be deceived

  It's all based on the two-party system

  which doesn't allow much freedom of choice

  the way things are set up

  America in its underwear

  struggles thru the night

  Underwear controls everything in the end

  Take foundation garments for instance

  They are really fascist forms

  of underground government

  making people believe

  something but the truth

  telling you what you can or can't do

  Did you ever try to get around a girdle

  Perhaps Non-Violent Action

  is the only answer

  Did Gandhi wear a girdle

  Did Lady Macbeth wear a girdle

  Was that why Macbeth murdered sleep

  And that spot she was always rubbing

  Was it really in her underwear

  Modern Anglo-Saxon ladies

  must have huge guilt complexes

  always washing and washing and washing

  Out damned spot

  Underwear with spots very suspicious

  Underwear with bulges very shocking

  Underwear on clothesline a great flag of freedom

  Someone has escaped his underwear

  May be naked somewhere

  Help

  But don't worry

  Everybody's still hung up in it

  There won't be no real revolution

  And poetry’s still the underwear of the soul

  And underwear still covering

  a multitude of faults

  in the geological sense

  strange sedimentary stones, inscrutable cracks

  For does not the body stay alive

  after death and still need its underwear

  or outgrow it

  some organs are said to reach full maturity

  only after the head stops holding them back

  If I were you I'd keep aside

  an oversize pair of winter underwear

  Do not go naked into that good night

  And in the meantime

  keep calm and warm and dry

  No use stirring ourselves up prematurely

  over Nothing

  Move forward with dignity

  hand in vest

  Don't get emotional

  And death shall have no dominion

  There's plenty of time my darling

  Are we not still young and easy

  Don't shout.

Don’t Let that Horse

Don’t let that horse

                              eat that violin

    cried Chagall’s mother

                                     But he   

                      kept right on

                                     painting

And became famous

And kept on painting

                              The Horse With Violin In Mouth

And when he finally finished it

he jumped up upon the horse

                                        and rode away   

          waving the violin

And then with a low bow gave it

to the first naked nude he ran across

And there were no strings   

                                     attached      

Lawrence Ferlinghetti has published numerous books of poetry, among them are Pictures of the Gone World, City Lights, 1955, enlarged edition, 1995; Tentative Description of a Dinner Given to Promote the Impeachment of President Eisenhower, Golden Mountain Press, 1958; A Coney Island of the Mind, New Directions, 1958; Berlin, Golden Mountain Press, 1961; One Thousand Fearful Words for Fidel Castro, City Lights, 1961; Thoughts of a Concerto of Telemann, Four Seasons Foundation, 1963; Where Is Vietnam?, City Lights, 1965; To F—-Is to Love Again, Kyrie Eleison Kerista; or, The Situation in the West, Followed by a Holy Proposal, F—-You Press, 1965; Christ Climbed Down, Syracuse University, 1965; An Eye on the World: Selected Poems, MacGibbon & Kee, 1967; Moscow in the Wilderness, Segovia in the Snow, Beach Books, 1967; Reverie Smoking Grass, East 128, 1968; The Secret Meaning of Things, New Directions, 1969; Tyrannus Nix?, New Directions, 1969; Back Roads to Far Places, New Directions, 1971; Open Eye, Open Heart, New Directions, 1973; Landscapes of Living and Dying (also see below), New Directions, 1979; A Trip to Italy and France, New Directions, 1980; Endless Life: Selected Poems, New Directions, 1984; Over All the Obscene Boundaries: European Poems and Transitions, New Directions, 1985; Wild Dreams of a New Beginning: Including “Landscapes of Living and Dying” and “Who Are We Now?,” New Directions, 1988; When I Look at Pictures, Peregrine Smith Books, 1990; These Are My Rivers: New and Selected Poems, 1955-1993, New Directions, 1993; A Far Rockaway of the Heart, New Directions, 1997; San Francisco Poems, City Lights, 2001; How to Paint Sunlight: Lyric Poems and Others, 1997-2000, New Directions, 2001; Poetry as Insurgent Art, New Directions, 2005.

(Lawrence Ferlinghetti March 24, 1919 - February 22, 2021)