Work poems
/ page 327 of 355 /
Haze
© Carl Sandburg
KEEP a red heart of memories
Under the great gray rain sheds of the sky,
Under the open sun and the yellow gloaming embers.
Remember all paydays of lilacs and songbirds;
Government
© Carl Sandburg
Everywhere I saw that Government is a thing made of
men, that Government has blood and bones, it is
many mouths whispering into many ears, sending
telegrams, aiming rifles, writing orders, saying
"yes" and "no."
Fellow Citizens
© Carl Sandburg
I DRANK musty ale at the Illinois Athletic Club with
the millionaire manufacturer of Green River butter
one night
And his face had the shining light of an old-time Quaker,
Dynamiter
© Carl Sandburg
I SAT with a dynamiter at supper in a German saloon
eating steak and onions.
And he laughed and told stories of his wife and children
and the cause of labor and the working class.
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,
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
Caboose Thoughts
© Carl Sandburg
ITS going to come out all rightdo you know?
The sun, the birds, the grassthey know.
They get alongand well get along.
Balloon Faces
© Carl Sandburg
THE BALLOONS hang on wires in the Marigold Gardens.
They spot their yellow and gold, they juggle their blue and red, they float their faces on the face of the sky.
Balloon face eaters sit by hundreds reading the eat cards, asking, What shall we eat?and the waiters, Have you ordered? they are sixty ballon faces sifting white over the tuxedoes.
Poets, lawyers, ad men, mason contractors, smartalecks discussing educated jackasses, here they put crabs into their balloon faces.
Baby Vamps
© Carl Sandburg
BABY vamps, is it harder work than it used to be?
Are the new soda parlors worse than the old time saloons?
Baby vamps, do you have jobs in the day time or is this all you do? do you come out only at night?
In the winter at the skating rinks, in the summer at the roller coaster parks,
And They Obey
© Carl Sandburg
SMASH down the cities.
Knock the walls to pieces.
Break the factories and cathedrals, warehouses
and homes
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 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.
Boes
© Carl Sandburg
I WAITED today for a freight train to pass.
Cattle cars with steers butting their horns against the
bars, went by.
And a half a dozen hoboes stood on bumpers between
Work Gangs
© Carl Sandburg
BOX cars run by a mile long.
And I wonder what they say to each other
When they stop a mile long on a sidetrack.
Maybe their chatter goes:
Wilderness
© Carl Sandburg
THERE is a wolf in me
fangs pointed for tearing gashes
a red tongue for raw meat
and the hot lapping of bloodI keep this wolf because the wilderness gave it to me and the wilderness will not let it go.
There is a fox in me
a silver-gray fox
I sniff and guess
I pick things out of the wind and air
I nose in the dark night and take sleepers and eat them and hide the feathers
I circle and loop and double-cross.
Under A Telephone Pole
© Carl Sandburg
I AM a copper wire slung in the air,
Slim against the sun I make not even a clear line of shadow.
Night and day I keep singing--humming and thrumming:
It is love and war and money; it is the fighting and the
Salvage
© Carl Sandburg
GUNS on the battle lines have pounded now a year
between Brussels and Paris.
And, William Morris, when I read your old chapter on
the great arches and naves and little whimsical
Onion Days
© Carl Sandburg
MRS. GABRIELLE GIOVANNITTI comes along Peoria Street
every morning at nine o'clock
With kindling wood piled on top of her head, her eyes
looking straight ahead to find the way for her old feet.
Long Guns
© Carl Sandburg
THEN came, Oscar, the time of the guns.
And there was no land for a man, no land for a country,
Unless guns sprang up
And spoke their language.
Choices
© Carl Sandburg
They offer you many things,
I a few.
Moonlight on the play of fountains at night
With water sparkling a drowsy monotone,
