These lines continue to cultivate the magical tone generated in the "Neon Fruit Supermarket". The way the speaker describes the interior of the grocery store as “bright” and “neon,” combined with his paranoia about the security that follows him, infers that the speaker is experiencing an altered state of consciousness. Or perhaps the speaker is dreaming about the entire experience. The speaker shows genuine affection for Whitman with the lines, “Which way does your beard point tonight? / (I touch your book and dream of our supermarket odyssey and feel absurd.).” Ginsberg creates a somewhat comical and loving tone with these jokes. It seems like the speaker has a romantic attraction to Whitman on some level. This takes the theme of the speaker's adoration of Whitman to new heights. “A Supermarket in California” was written in 1955, a turbulent time marked by much civil unrest and subjugation of personal liberties in the name of national security. Ginsberg and his contemporaries were fed up with the social norms that existed at the time and used poetry and literature to express these ideas. This contempt for society is visible in the