Category Archives: Text and Art

The Waiting Room Drawings #1 – mixed media – by clinock.   April 5. 2013.

I Am Waiting by Lawrence Ferlinghetti:

“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.”