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HEY WALT!
Talking to Whitman
Poems
by David Gershator
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Contents
Introduction
Super Walt
For Walt and the Lion Tamers
Night Wind
The Poet’s House
Block Party for Walt
Walt’s Birthday, May 31
Poetic Ejaculation for Walt
Talking Apples
Ten MG Revelation Road
Lost in the Crowd
Subway Bard
Marathon
Pain City
There’s Something to Be Said
for Dying in ’92
Dear Walt
Walt, the Double
Walt
Who
Yippee for Yawps
King of the Damned
INTRODUCTION
In this selection of poems, over
half of them address Whitman
directly: “Hey Walt,” “Dear Walt,”
“You.” Just one poet confiding,
praising, teasing the other,
mixing up fantasy and fact, this
world and the next, autobiography
and biography.
Just to illustrate how David felt
about Whitman, when he had a heart
scare and we thought it was scary
enough to rush to the ER, out of
all the reading matter in the
house David chose a collection of
Whitman’s works: the chosen book,
THE book whether for a desert
island or a hospital visit. His
attachment to the poet's work was
lifelong: Walt as inspiration,
mentor, buddy, sounding board,
foil for his own darker vision....
David had planned to gather his
Whitman poems together someday,
but there was always another
project on the horizon (“poems
coming up” or a demanding “poet
head”). He would rather write
another poem than go through the
previous batch. And if he did make
that organizational effort, there
could well be another round of
edits to what he’d written before!
I selected poems for this chapbook
sized collection that felt and
looked like the final versions,
and if they were snippets and/or
still works-in-progress, they were
not included, except for one.
Phillis Gershator
2025
SUPER WALT
I sound my barbaric
yawp over the roofs of the world.
--Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself”
You launch into your yawp
leap over roofs in a single bound
skim over the world
from Canada to Timbuktu
you toast the Atlas in a wanderlust
of geographic names names names
you float in the sky
you drink in the sun
you’re surrounded by pigeons
they garland your cumulus head
I see you where no one sees you
where I fly an American Beauty kite
where your eyes flash lightning
where I’m grounded in my teens
on a tenement roof
looking toward Mannahatta
waiting for a word
waiting for my own words
hidden in your wild and woolly
crumb catching bardic beard
--------------------------------------
FOR WALT AND THE LION TAMERS
First ran into you
hiding out around Bushwick Public
Library
I was in love puppy love with a
young blonde librarian
stamping long litanies of date dues
she loved my first after-shave
lotion
touched me touched your book
made me blush and come back
for more date dues
Public library had small concrete
lions out front
what a rush of lines and lions!
verse after verse you devoured me!
I was raw and you ate me raw
you got to my bones and sucked them
clean
turned them into panpipes in a
tenement
where the only pipes I knew
were cold radiators and faulty
plumbing
man, you had me
Later someone tarred the lions
still later someone smashed the
lions
later still they up and disappeared
it’s tough to be a lion in Bushwick
Brooklyn
library lions don’t stand a chance
in the man eating streets
they went just like this
the neighborhood went just like that
gone with the lions to some landfill
Sometimes, Walt, I still see you
around
working in a shelter for the
homeless
I still keep in touch with your
Leaves
first touched in a leafless slum
where grass was out of bounds
where I was ashamed to bring a
friend or a date
but I wasn’t ashamed to bring you
keep you renew you
pay your date due fines bail you out
always tempted to steal you
I knew that you knew me inside out
I touched you touched a man
I would’ve loved to touch the
librarian
but what’s a blonde compared to a
book, Walt
I knew you’d outlast the damn lions
-----------------------------------------------
NIGHT WIND
Sound of leaves rushing
things banging knocking around
and in half sleep
disturbed by the whoosh
of the wind
I saw your familiar face
a bearded face
and I knew it was you, old man
out there in the American sky
huffing and puffing
and I said, “Hey, camerado, qué
pasa?
Whatcha huffing and puffing for?”
and you called back
“Blow ye winds, hi ho!
There’s a cloud cover over America
I’m blowing it out to sea
Let in some sunshine for a change.”
I laughed as he huffed
and puffed himself to pieces
leaving stray leaves
all over New York, Washington,
Detroit, L.A.
and other windblown places
leaves stuck in my front door
autumn’s calling cards
------------------------------
THE POET’S HOUSE
After “Walt Whitman’s Ghost” in The
New Yorker,
article by Paul Berman, June
12,1995.
Dear Walt--
You might get a kick
knowing
who lives in the Brooklyn house
your mother bought on spec:
a musician from St. Kitts
an electrician by trade,
his alias Watongo
Reggae Man
Watongo never heard of you
but when he was told America’s
greatest poet once lived here,
he said “How do you know
there isn’t a great poet
living here now?”
I’d like to talk to Watongo—
I like his vibes
I’ll give him your book
get his take on it
maybe toke a few leaves of grass
I know you guys will hit it off
everything will be alright
Everything irie
On Watongo’s stoop
your stoop, Walt
I can hear America singing
to a reggae beat
----------------------
BLOCK PARTY FOR WALT
They’ve discovered
Walt Whitman’s house on Ryerson
Street
still standing
It made headlines in The New
York Times
What a bonanza for Brooklyn!
real estate taking off
fast buck operators buying up the
block
Elvis look out!
You have real competition
from a word slinger with a sexy
message
right from the solar plexus
and the go-go gonads
What a coup!
Travel agents expect millions
to descend on Brooklyn
for a glimpse of Walt’s house
sight seeing buses passing by
every ten minutes
The two story clapboard house
where Leaves of Grass
first lay on the kitchen table
will turn into a memorial shrine
In Washington the president
will proclaim a national holiday
Lincoln Center will sponsor
a look alike contest
Grey bearded Walt clones
will appear like Santas
to declaim bardic stanzas on
Broadway
You’ll hear America singing alright
coast to coast and beyond
until the neighbors have had it
with the party amplifiers
and vote to pull the plug
--------------------------------
WALT’S BIRTHDAY, MAY 31
In memoriam: Mary Fisher, May 16
Walt, come sit your soul down
on the couch with me
let’s leaf through the Leaves
you left behind
you chanting your springy spring
catalogs
or whatever suits your fancy
I’ll sit back and listen
I want to see your soul rising
hovering over the couch
before you zip out the open window
soaring up and away over Mannahatta
before you spin around the planet
and break free of gravity
into May’s merry cosmos
where my flower mother Mary also
hovers
outward bound at the speed of spring
Come sit and loaf with me on the
couch
I have this deep seated need in May
to catch up with the past
and pass the time
with your soul expanding soul
----------------------------------------
POETIC EJACULATION FOR WALT
Urge and urge and urge,
Always the procreant urge of
the world.
--Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself”
Every time I toss a condom
into the wastebasket
I do it with a twinge of mystical
remorse
What a waste of vital juices
of frisky spermatozoa
of huddled masses of life
of chance
of college caliber creative
intelligence
of artists musicians
daydreamers
poets taxpayers and secular
humanists
What a holocaust of possibilities
of potential sons and curly haired
daughters
of generating generations baby
booming
for great grandpa Walt Whitman’s
sake
all across these visionary States
Poor used condoms!
All seeds unseeded
all accidents untried
all parenthood unplanned
but what a relief from
responsibilities
from claims and demands
from night anxieties
sweats
fevers and worries
and children
always children
without end
So it’s time out for a moment of
silence
in honor of those who got snagged in
the bag...
and yet and yet
that post coitum tristum twinge of
regret
returns with every baggy
and I, an accident
and accidental progenitor of two
accidents
plus multitudes flushed down the
drain
seem born to wrestle with the
nagging
Angels of Procreation
time and time again
as if somehow
good sex and great ejaculation
aren’t enough
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TALKING APPLES
This poem drooping
shy and unseen that I always
carry, and that all men carry..
from Walt
Whitman's "Spontaneous Me"
All those poet wannabees
man lovers and loverman wannabees
want to take hold of your hand
fatherly hand, brotherly hand
magnetic hand, helping hand
adhesive hand, platonic hand
disembodied hand, guiding hand
I don’t need your hand anymore
but I admire your balls
for coming out with what you knew
better than anybody
and said so
fearless phallus or Mound of Venus
you gave it its due
Everybody’s got poetry between the
legs
and if that’s what makes us
sing the songs of Eden
then let the apples fall
roll
and keep on rolling
where they may...
there’s poetry in them thar apples
and dark seeds
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TEN MG REVELATION ROAD
A haze--nirwana--rest and
night--oblivion.
from Walt Whitman’s “Twilight”
Prince Valium and Walt Whitman
charge on down the American road
Whitman’s high on democratic drugs
Prince Valium lives up to his name
dozing off at the wheel
Walt keeps poking the prince
with a sharp elbow
“Hey, keep your eyes open!
Where’d you learn to drive?”
The prince answers
“Here, you take the wheel
Be my chauffeur or we’ll never get
wherever the hell it is we’re going
My short term memory is shot
I had Valium for breakfast
don’t even know what country we’re
in
All I know is I’m traveling away
from wherever I am
and I can hardly remember who you
are
or where you came from
Does anyone have a driver’s license
I’ve got to sleep off the lead in
the head
the pain in the brain
Don’t bother me, man
I’ll take the wheel
when we get to Nirvana”
--------------------------------
LOST IN THE CROWD
Down Broadway to Prince
to meet my friend Walt
and he confesses
It’s great to be alive and not exist
what a coincidence I exclaim
I was thinking the same thing
in the same words
But then again I suppose
it’s even greater or greatest
to exist and be alive says Walt
again a coincidence!
must be poetic telepathy
so I jot down these lines:
I exist I’m alive
I’m in N.Y. on Broadway and Prince
with the King of Democratic Poets
I’m more alive than ever
among phantoms
only the prince of spare change
shakes me back into reality
with his old routine--
shake shake shake
man, there’s a whole lot of shaking
going on
For the jive cup shaker
I still count I exist I’m no phantom
there is no doubt
I’m good for a quarter
-----------------------------
SUBWAY BARD
to Les, on the occasion of his
arrest
for reciting poems in Washington
Square Park
I can go from car to car
singing for my supper
I can go from car to car reciting
poems
short punchy verse some
Williams some Whitman
some Langston Hughes Alice
Walker Li Po
or even my alter ego, the jackhammer
Jack Alchemy
Poetry on the subway? Live?
Why not? Do I need a license?
Is it illegal? A public nuisance?
Will I be a disbarred bard?
Will I be charged with verbal
assault?
I want the best ACLU lawyers for my
defense!
I’ll go for the political jugular
I’ll make the first amendment stand
up
and cheer for its defender
I’ll be the Vachel Lindsay of the
subway
the Walt Whitman of the fast track
The system will sound with bards
from the Battery to the Bronx
I’ll be the leader of the
underground poetry movement
darling of the Village Voice
collecting coins in my paper cup
Look at all my fellow riders
my fellow Americans
hamburger and pizza parlor patrons
of the democratic heartburn club
Look at ‘em so hungry
I recite a poem
and let ‘em have it free!
Let them hear it ignore it
adjust their head phones
They’ll appreciate real live poetry
especially when it’s gone
My audience might even quote a line
or two
remembering a token poem
from a token tripping poetry freak
on an orphic trip through limbo
————
Note: When I asked Les (Lehman
Weischelbaum) if he really was
arrested for reciting poetry, he
set the record straight: “I was
doing street poetry in WSP
[Washington Square Park] when a
cop politely evicted me because I
didn't have a permit for my banner
‘Poetry Strike Force.’” So it
seems David unknowingly
embellished the truth--or took
poetic license.---- PG
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MARATHON
Bang!
They’re off and running the New
York marathon
millions and millions racing
miles and miles
stand back here they come
everyone
who ever came to NY pursuing and
pursued
there’s Walt Whitman leading all the
other beards by a beard
there’s a close pack of famous
unknowns all the mayors
with schools named after them and
there’s
Diamond Jim Brady chased by Boss
Tweed
and the Mafia boys
they’re in there trying to fix the
race
There goes my family in a closely
knit pack
running as usual in the wrong
direction
I’m running my butt off too
trained by the A train F train IRT
and BMT
trying to get somewhere fast where I
can hear my own feet
there’s old Ginsberg hard on my
heels—
can’t help it if he’s from Jersey—
got to shake him off my ass and
break free among the front runners
Ah! the wind the
sweat the untied
sneakers of America
leaping the bridges in a single
bound and giving King Kong
the high High Five on the Empire
State
Hey Walt, what’s the rush? why
are we running?
because everybody else is running?
OK here comes Everybody and he’s
running like he’s late
for work the subway a
hot date with a centerfold
pant pant pant why am I
running? because I have to
because it’s NY because I want to
prove I’m still in the running
got to put on speed give me
room give me space
give me the home stretch and I’ll
give you a run
for the finish line
even though it’s invisible and who
knows where it ends
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PAIN CITY
Looking with eyes closed
looking for American suicide
medicine cabinet full of it
but nothing there when you need it
I haven’t got the goods
the capsules vials sleeping pills
expired before I get to expire
Unfair!
I want my demise
and I want it now
instant gratification
Let the dead take a vote
I’m still breathing
Disqualified! Not dead yet!
someone blow the whistle
he’s still breathing
someone hit him over the head
so he can vote
this is the participatory democracy
of the deceased, Walt,
There’s not a ghost of a chance to
win
if you’re alive and breathing
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THERE’S SOMETHING TO BE SAID FOR
DYING IN ‘92
Of course, you know you have
a high approval rating
mine and everyone else’s
for dying in 1892
No doubt about it
you chose right
It was a most propitious time for
demise
as Digby O’Dell, the friendly
undertaker
might have put it
yep, you certainly chose right
stay in the 19th century, Walt
the century is you
you wear it so well
what do you want with any future
century
and what for god’s sake if you chose
the 20th or 21st?
You chose right
no need to fret in your $40,000
mausoleum
you chose right to check out of
Camden
old and bearded in your seventies
but how could you pay such a crazy
price
for your tomb!
we’re talking Camden not Egypt!
we’re talking forty grand in 1892
dollars!
you never cease to amaze
with your burial complex
what a way to go into debt
how lucky you had friends who could
pay it off
so you could rest in peace
long live the skeleton in the Jersey
woods!
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DEAR WALT
Just to let you know
the Twentieth is over
thank God!
the truth is it’s never over
don’t bother coming to the party
don’t even think about it
stay in the good old Nineteenth
Century
minister to the battle butchered
write and rewrite your booster bible
listen to the sea’s manifest destiny
of death
you’re better off on Paumanok
you didn’t even have a word for
genocide
though the Indians knew it
and everybody thought it was great
Back in the Twentieth
Lorca put butterflies in your beard
Ginsberg turned you into a dirty old
man
Sandburg used you for an echo
chamber
Mayakovsky took you for a trampoline
Crane as an article of faith...
I just wonder what runs through your
mind
when you run your fingers
through your beard
contemplating your leaves and lovers
you knew where the bodies were
buried
you knew the grass and the
grassroots
you rocked a language
you rocked a New World out of its
cradle
But everything ended with the
Twentieth, Walt
wars to end all wars
ends to end all ends
means to end all means, all meanings
Hurray for millenniums
this one, the next one and all to
come
It would be cruel to invite you to
an end all party, Walt
it would break your champagne heart
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WALT, THE DOUBLE
Walt Walt Walt
why hast thou forsaken me
your laundry lists
your democratic vistas
your drumbeats
your super yawps
just don’t cut it anymore
Your great inventories
are running out of space
I’m turning deaf
to the beat of your big drum
and the cries of the world
are making me numb
Is that you
holding out your thumb
by the Walt Whitman Bridge
or your anonymous
grey bearded double
hoping for a hitch
I do a double take and drive on
-----------------------------------------
Walt--
I’ve given my best years
to the Bitch Goddess Poetry
I’ve had her in the kitchen
living room and bedroom
and everywhere she had me
and left me wanting more
Her words an addiction
her words a smoke screen
for the wordless world
her words hiding anguish
for which there is no pill,
no poetry, no cure
————------------
Note: this “letter” to Walt
Whitman, hand written, which I
found going through damaged files
and papers after hurricanes
Irma and Maria, was one of the few
decipherable poems I managed to
salvage.—PG
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WHO
Who am I writing for
for someone born on the other side
of midnight
for someone on the other side of the
bed
for someone painted into a corner
for someone on the other side of the
wall
for someone who weighs cobwebs
for someone who reads rivers
for someone who teaches Latin to
lunatics
for someone who knows what for
for someone sick with knowing
for someone at the edge
for someone who has traveled around
sending emails to the moon
for someone licking an address into
an earlobe
for someone with the the attention
span of a lover
in the waiting room of Dr. Lobotomy
for someone with a guitar and no
strings
for someone who makes change for
spare change
for someone bringing a bouquet to
the blind
for someone beyond a prayer of a
chance
for someone who understands
grasshoppers
for someone who counts after
lightning
for someone who answers
with a dance among strange dancers
for someone who needs to know
there’s an echo after throwaway
lines
for the loser in the mirror
for the winner in the rain
for someone anyone maybe me maybe
you
maybe Walt Whitman riding butt naked
on a horse
into the land of no ifs ands or buts
and plenty of maybes
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YIPPEE FOR YAWPS
Do you have any Whitman poems?
Do I have any Whitman poems?
We used to do open readings together
in Pfaff’s beer cellar
Bleecker and Broadway
great audience down there
the real underground
crazy dudes, old hippies, wild women
fame chasers, a New York scene
trouble is you let that guy near a
mike
you can kiss that mike goodbye
Oh he was a live one!
and after he broke into the big
leagues
he had this trick of letting out
barbaric yawps
wild flapping pterodactyl yawps!
hairy bald eagle yawps!
electric body yawps!
The crowds at Yankee Stadium went
bananas
yelling screaming stomping yawping
WALT WALT WALT
and he’d belt those poems out of the
park
high over the roofs and into the
Bronx Zoo...
pompous penguins never knew what hit
‘em
and the lions roared
they just don’t make yawps like they
useta
Nowadays
you can find some in the zoo
behind bars
the last of the dynamite yawps
looking lost
looking sorta red white and
blue mostly blue
an endangered species--
it can happen to the best
it happens
Do I have any Whitman poems?
Sure, doesn’t everyone?
I carry Walt in my wallet for good
luck
right next to George and Lincoln and
a condom
and I still do open readings to
honor
those great yawps of yesteryear
I’m still yipping for yawps
----------------------------------
KING OF THE DAMNED
When I was alive I used to love
Second Ave. and St. Marks Place
cafes, bars, Ukrainian restaurants
forget job hassles, go for life
hang out with the poets, dancers,
actors
musicians, magicians, hangers on
I collected crazies
so I could be king of the damned
so I could feel blessed
never knowing which way the night
would jump
with words with sex with poems with
guitars
who knew where and when and how I’d
wake up
and who I would be in the morning
all hail another Lower East Side
hero!
Now that I’m supposed to be off line
I trade war stories, confessions
inspired obscenities
rhapsodic raps and epitaphs
with some angel buddies
especially that odd old fart, Walt
the guy from Jersey
who invented America single handed
after he invented Paumonok and
Manahatta
Yeah,we jive about being one with
the grass
one with a piece of ass
one with the critical mass
one with the beer and the pizza
one with the subway
one with the lost Twin Towers
one with the fire hydrants
one with the All in All
one with the One and Only
going one on one
with all the cosmic comic games
and players in the universe
slam dunkin’ moon after moon
into the Hudson’s cold water coffin
---------------------------------------------
"Dear Walt" -- appeared
in Home Planet News.
"For Walt and the Lion Tamers"--
appeared in Broken Land:
Poems of Brooklyn
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