Underwear

Underwear

By Lawrence Ferlinghetti

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

The Pope wears underwear I hope

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

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 anglosaxon 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 still the underwear of the soul   

And underwear still covering

a multitude of faults

in the geological sense—

strange sedimentary stones, inscrutable cracks!   

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

About the Poet

On March 24, 1919, Lawrence Ferlinghetti was born in Yonkers, New York. After spending his early childhood in France, he received his BA from the University of North Carolina, an MA from Columbia University, and a PhD from the Sorbonne.

During World War II he served in the US Naval Reserve and was sent to Nagasaki shortly after it was bombed. He married in 1951 and has one daughter and one son.

In 1953, Ferlinghetti and Peter Martin began to publish City Lights magazine. They also opened the City Lights Books Shop in San Francisco to help support the magazine. In 1955, they launched City Light Publishing, a book-publishing venture. City Lights became known as the heart of the “Beat” movement, which included writers such as Kenneth Rexroth, Gary Snyder, Allen Ginsberg, and Jack Kerouac.

Currently, Ferlinghetti writes a weekly column for the San Francisco Chronicle. He also continues to operate the City Lights bookstore, and he travels frequently to participate in literary conferences and poetry readings.