I am Waiting (poem by Ferlenghetti)

[heinzs]

I AM WAITING

I am waiting for my case to come up
and I am waiting
for a rebirth of wonder
and I am waiting
for someone to really discover America
and wail
and I am waiting
for the discovery
of a new symbolic western frontier
and I am waiting
for the American Eagle
to really spread its wings
and straighten up and fly right
and I am waiting
for the Age of Anxiety
to drop dead
and I am waiting
for the war to be fought
which will make the world safe
for anarchy
and I am waiting
for the final withering away
of all governments
and I am perpetually awaiting
a rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the Second Coming
and I am waiting
for a religious revival
to sweep through the state of Arizona
and I am waiting
for the Grapes of Wrath to be stored
and I am waiting
for them to prove
that God is really American
and I am waiting
to see God on television
piped' onto church altars
if only they can find
the right channel
to tune in on
and I am waiting
for the Last Supper to be served again
with a strange new appetizer
and I am perpetually awaiting
a rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for my number to be called
and I am waiting
for the Salvation Army to take over
and I am waiting
for the meek to be blessed
and inherit the earth
without taxes and I am waiting
for forests and animals
to reclaim the earth as theirs
and I am waiting
for a way to be devised
to destroy all nationalisms
without killing anybody
and I am waiting
for linnets and planets to fall like rain
and I am waiting for lovers and weepers
to lie down together again
in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the Great Divide to be crossed
and I am anxiously waiting
for the secret of eternal life to be discovered
by an obscure general practitioner
and I am waiting
for the storms of life
to be over
and I am waiting
to set sail for happiness
and I am waiting
for a reconstructed Mayflower
to reach America
with its picture story and tv rights
sold in advance to the natives
and I am waiting
for the lost music to sound again
in the Lost Continent
in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the day
that maketh all things clear
and I am awaiting retribution
for what America did
to Tom Sawyer
and I am waiting
for the American Boy
to take off Beauty's clothes
and get on top of her
and I am waiting
for Alice in Wonderland
to retransmit to me
her total dream of innocence
and I am waiting
for Childe Roland to come
to the final darkest tower
and I am waiting
for Aphrodite
to grow live arms
at a final disarmament conference
in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting
to get some intimations
of immortality
by recollecting my early childhood
and I am waiting
for the green mornings to come again
youth's dumb green fields come back again
and I am waiting
for some strains of unpremeditated art
to shake my typewriter
and I am waiting to write
the great indelible poem
and I am waiting
for the last long careless rapture
and I am perpetually waiting
for the fleeing lovers on the Grecian Urn
to catch each other up at last
and embrace
and I am waiting
perpetually and forever
a renaissance of wonder

Lawrence Ferlinghetti
A Coney Island Of The Mind, 1958

______________________________
Written in 1958, this piece is still oh so timely today! Nothing has changed to make a single word of it obsolete. That's what "classical" poetry is all about, whether it's 2000 years old or only 20.

Cheers all. I hope you enjoyed the reading as much as I did.

Pops

[bags123]

Me too. Thanks for sharing this Heinz. A worthy read.

[Ven]

I've never read this before, I will most certainly be reading it again ... a good friend of mine said "I guess the classics are classics for a reason" this endorses that view. Thanks for sharing it HeinzS.

B.T.W. Robert Brownings ~ CHILDE ROLAND TO THE DARK TOWER CAME.
is one of the greatest poems ever written.

[Coaxoch]

What a work. Many thanks for giving me a new page to read over and over again, Pops....


- Rose

[zero1]

so old and still valid as you point out...and if he were alive 2000 years from now if that were medically possible he probablly
wouldn't need to write the sequel "finally!" it must be nice
to have normal things to be waiting for...im still waiting
on a big bat creature to come flying through my window
at midnight and take me into the pit.(inside joke,but not very funny)

[heinzs]

Have you tried leaving the window open? Just a thought.

Oh... and you have to remove the garlands of garlic...

[PSALMISM212]

Great piece!
Sometimes I think that this land will only be healed when the Natives take back the parks and National forests.