Underwear

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