All Poems

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Clean Curtains

© Carl Sandburg

NEW neighbors came to the corner house at Congress and Green streets.

The look of their clean white curtains was the same as the rim of a nuns bonnet.

Clark Street Bridge

© Carl Sandburg

DUST of the feet
And dust of the wheels,
Wagons and people going,
All day feet and wheels.

Circles of Doors

© Carl Sandburg

I LOVE him, I love him, ran the patter of her lips
And she formed his name on her tongue and sang
And she sent him word she loved him so much,
So much, and death was nothing; work, art, home,

IN the morning, a Sunday morning, shadows of sea and adumbrants of rock in her eyes horseback in leather boots and leather gauntlets by the sea.

In the evening, a Sunday evening, a rope of pearls on her white shoulders and a speaking, brooding black velvet, relapsing to the voiceless battering Russian marches on a piano drive of blizzards across Nebraska.

Yes, riding horseback on hills by the sea sitting at the ivory keys in black velvet, a rope of pearls on white shoulders.

Child Margaret

© Carl Sandburg

THE CHILD Margaret begins to write numbers on a Saturday morning, the first numbers formed under her wishing child fingers.
All the numbers come well-born, shaped in figures assertive for a frieze in a childs room.
Both 1 and 7 are straightforward, military, filled with lunge and attack, erect in shoulder-straps.
The 6 and 9 salute as dancing sisters, elder and younger, and 2 is a trapeze actor swinging to handclaps.

Child

© Carl Sandburg

The young child, Christ, is straight and wise
And asks questions of the old men, questions
Found under running water for all children
And found under shadows thrown on still waters

Chicks

© Carl Sandburg

THE CHICK in the egg picks at the shell, cracks open one oval world, and enters another oval world.

Cheep cheep cheep is the salutation of the newcomer, the emigrant, the casual at the gates of the new world.

Chasers

© Carl Sandburg

THE SEA at its worst drives a white foam up,
The same sea sometimes so easy and rocking with green mirrors.
So you were there when the white foam was up
And the salt spatter and the rack and the dulse

Chamfort

© Carl Sandburg

THERE'S Chamfort. He's a sample.
Locked himself in his library with a gun,
Shot off his nose and shot out his right eye.
And this Chamfort knew how to write

Cartoon

© Carl Sandburg

I AM making a Cartoon of a Woman. She is the People.
She is the Great Dirty Mother.
And Many Children hang on her Apron, crawl at her
Feet, snuggle at her Breasts.

Carlovingian Dreams

© Carl Sandburg

COUNT these reminiscences like money.
The Greeks had their picnics under another name.
The Romans wore glad rags and told their neighbors, What of it?
The Carlovingians hauling logs on carts, they too

Calls

© Carl Sandburg

BECAUSE I have called to you
as the flame flamingo calls,
or the want of a spotted hawk
is called

Cahoots

© Carl Sandburg

PLAY it across the table.
What if we steal this city blind?
If they want any thing let em nail it down.

Cadenza

© Carl Sandburg

THE KNEES
of this proud woman
are bone.

Caboose Thoughts

ITS going to come out all rightdo you know?
The sun, the birds, the grassthey know.
They get alongand well get along.

Buffalo Bill

BOY heart of Johnny Jonesaching to-day?
Aching, and Buffalo Bill in town?
Buffalo Bill and ponies, cowboys, Indians?

Bronzes

ITHE bronze General Grant riding a bronze horse in Lincoln
Park
Shrivels in the sun by day when the motor cars whirr
by in long processions going somewhere to keep appointment

Broken-face Gargoyles

ALL I can give you is broken-face gargoyles.
It is too early to sing and dance at funerals,
Though I can whisper to you I am looking for an undertaker humming a lullaby and throwing his feet in a swift and mystic buck-and-wing, now you see it and now you dont.

Broken Tabernacles

HAVE I broken the smaller tabernacles, O Lord?
And in the destruction of these set up the greater and massive, the everlasting tabernacles?
I know nothing today, what I have done and why, O Lord, only I have broken and broken tabernacles.
They were beautiful in a way, these tabernacles torn down by strong hands swearing
They were beautifulwhy did the hypocrites carve their own names on the corner-stones? why did the hypocrites keep on singing their own names in their long noses every Sunday in these tabernacles?
Who lays any blame here among the split cornerstones?

Broadway

Hearts that know you hate you
And lips that have given you laughter
Have gone to their ashes of life and its roses,
Cursing the dreams that were lost
In the dust of your harsh and trampled stones.