Poems begining by A
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And They Obey
© Carl Sandburg
SMASH down the cities.
Knock the walls to pieces.
Break the factories and cathedrals, warehouses
and homes
An Electric Sign Goes Dark
© Carl Sandburg
POLAND, France, Judea ran in her veins,
Singing to Paris for bread, singing to Gotham in a fizz at the pop of a bottles cork.
Wont you come and play wiz me she sang
and I just cant make my eyes behave.
Among the Red Guns
© Carl Sandburg
AMONG the red guns,
In the hearts of soldiers
Running free blood
In the long, long campaign:
Dreams go on.
Always the Mob
© Carl Sandburg
JESUS emptied the devils of one man into forty hogs and the hogs took the edge of a high rock and dropped off and down into the sea: a mob.
The sheep on the hills of Australia, blundering fourfooted in the sunset mist to the dark, they go one way, they hunt one sleep, they find one pocket of grass for all.
All Day Long
© Carl Sandburg
ALL day long in fog and wind,
The waves have flung their beating crests
Against the palisades of adamant.
My boy, he went to sea, long and long ago,
Alix
© Carl Sandburg
THE MARE Alix breaks the worlds trotting record one day. I see her heels flash down the dust of an Illinois race track on a summer afternoon. I see the timekeepers put their heads together over stopwatches, and call to the grand stand a split second is clipped off the old worlds record and a new worlds record fixed.
I see the mare Alix led away by men in undershirts and streaked faces. Dripping Alix in foam of white on the harness and shafts. And the men in undershirts kiss her ears and rub her nose, and tie blankets on her, and take her away to have the sweat sponged.
Adelaide Crapsey
© Carl Sandburg
AMONG the bumble-bees in red-top hay, a freckled field of brown-eyed Susans dripping yellow leaves in July,
I read your heart in a book.
And your mouth of blue pansyI know somewhere I have seen it rain-shattered.
A. E. F.
© Carl Sandburg
THERE will be a rusty gun on the wall, sweetheart,
The rifle grooves curling with flakes of rust.
A spider will make a silver string nest in the darkest, warmest corner of it.
The trigger and the range-finder, they too will be rusty.
A Teamster's Farewell
© Carl Sandburg
Sobs En Route to a PenitentiaryGOOD-BY now to the streets and the clash of wheels and
locking hubs,
The sun coming on the brass buckles and harness knobs.
The muscles of the horses sliding under their heavy
A Tall Man
© Carl Sandburg
THE MOUTH of this man is a gaunt strong mouth.
The head of this man is a gaunt strong head.
The jaws of this man are bone of the Rocky Mountains, the Appalachians.
A Million Young Workmen, 1915
© Carl Sandburg
A MILLION young workmen straight and strong lay stiff on the grass and roads,
And the million are now under soil and their rottening flesh will in the years feed roots of blood-red roses.
Yes, this million of young workmen slaughtered one another and never saw their red hands.
And oh, it would have been a great job of killing and a new and beautiful thing under the sun if the million knew why they hacked and tore each other to death.
A Coin
© Carl Sandburg
YOUR western heads here cast on money,
You are the two that fade away together,
Partners in the mist.
Aztec Mask
© Carl Sandburg
I wanted a man's face looking into the jaws and throat
of life
With something proud on his face, so proud no smash
of the jaws,
Autumn Movement
© Carl Sandburg
I CRIED over beautiful things knowing no beautiful thing lasts.
The field of cornflower yellow is a scarf at the neck of the copper sunburned woman, the mother of the year, the taker of seeds.
The northwest wind comes and the yellow is torn full of holes, new beautiful things come in the first spit of snow on the northwest wind, and the old things go, not one lasts.
Accomplished Facts
© Carl Sandburg
EVERY year Emily Dickinson sent one friend
the first arbutus bud in her garden.
In a last will and testament Andrew Jackson
A Sphinx
© Carl Sandburg
Close-mouthed you sat five thousand years and never
let out a whisper.
Processions came by, marchers, asking questions you
answered with grey eyes never blinking, shut lips
A Fence
© Carl Sandburg
NOW the stone house on the lake front is finished and the
workmen are beginning the fence.
The palings are made of iron bars with steel points that
can stab the life out of any man who falls on them.
Alley Rats
© Carl Sandburg
THEY were calling certain styles of whiskers by the name of lilacs.
And another manner of beard assumed in their chatter a verbal guise
Of mutton chops, galways, feather dusters.
A Certain Kind of Holy Men
© Alden Nowlan
Not every wino is a Holy Man.
Oh, but some of them are.
I love those who've learned
to sit comfortably
A Mysterious Naked Man
© Alden Nowlan
A mysterious naked man has been reported
on Cranston Avenue. The police are performing
the usual ceremonies with coloured lights and sirens.
Almost everyone is outdoors and strangers are conversing
