"Underwear" -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  Even Indians wear underwear  Even Cubans wear 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 do 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  with 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 of 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 the spot she was always rubbing - Was it really 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?