Underwear by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Lawrence Ferlinghetti - Underwear
1 didnt get much sleep last night
thintâng about undenwear
Have you ever stopped to consider
underwear in the abstract
When you really dig înto it
some Shocking problerns are raised
Underwear is something we all have to deal with
Everyone wears
some kind of undenwear
Even Indians wear underwear
Even Cubans
wear undenvear
The Pope wears underwear ! hope
The Governor of Louisiana wears underwear
1 saw him on TV
He must have had tight underwear
He squirmed a iot
Underwear can really get you în a bind
You have seen the underwear ads for men and women
so alike but so diferent
Women's underwear holds things up
Men's underwear holds things down
Underwear is one thing
men and women do have în common
Underwear is al we have between us
You have seen the three-color pictures
with crofches encircled
o show the areas of extra strength
with three-way stretch
promising ful! freedom ot action
Dont be deceived
Is al based on the two-party system
which doesnt allow much freedom of choice
the way things are set up
America in iis Underwear
Struggles thru the night
Underwear controls everything în the end
Take foundation garmenis tor instance
They are real fascist forms
of underground govermment
making people believe
something but the truth
teling you what you can of cant do,
Did you ever try to get around a girdie
Perhaps Non-Violent Action
is îne oniy answer
Did Gandhi wear a girdle?
Did Lady Macbeth wear a girdle?
Was that why Macbeth murdered sleep?
And the spot she was always rubbing -
Was it realiy her underwear?
Modern anglosaxon ladies
must have huge guit complexes
always washing and washing and washing
Out damned spot
Underwear with spots very suspicious
Underwear with bulges very shoching
Underwear on clothestine a great flag of freedom
Someone has escaped his Underwear
May be naked somewhere
Het
But dont worry
Everybody's stil hung up în it
There wontt be no real revolution
And poetry stil the underwear of the soul
And underwear sti covering
a multtude ot faults
in the geological sense -
strange sedimentary stones, inscrutable crack!
FI were you Id keep aside
an oversize pair of winter underwear
Do not go naked into that good night
And în îhe meantime
keep calm and warm and dry
No use string ourselves up prematurely
'over Nothing:
Move forward with dignity
hand în vest
Dont get emotional
And death shali have no dominion
There's plenty of time my dariing
Are we not sti young and easy?
Don't Shout.