Section: «Poems»

Verse (ancient Greek ὁ στίχος — row, structure), a term in versification used in several meanings: artistic speech organized by division into rhythmically commensurate segments; poetry in the narrow sense; in particular, it implies the properties of versification of a particular tradition ("antique verse", "Akhmatova's verse", etc.); a line of poetic text organized according to a certain rhythmic pattern ("My uncle of the most honest rules").

Mag

I wish to God I never saw you, Mag.I wish you never quit your job and came along with me.I wish we never bought a license and a white dressFor you to..

© Carl Sandburg

Love Beyond Keeping

She had a boxwith a million red bandanas for him.She gave them to himone by one or by thousands,saying then she had not enough for him.She had..

© Carl Sandburg

Lost

Desolate and loneAll night long on the lakeWhere fog trails and mist creeps,The whistle of a boatCalls and cries unendingly,Like some lost childIn..

© Carl Sandburg

Losses

I have loveAnd a child,A banjoAnd shadows.(Losses of God,All will goAnd one dayWe will holdOnly the shadows.)

© Carl Sandburg

Losers

IF I should pass the tomb of JonahI would stop there and sit for awhile;Because I was swallowed one time deep in the darkAnd came out alive after..

© Carl Sandburg

Long Guns

THEN came, Oscar, the time of the guns.And there was no land for a man, no land for a country,Unless guns sprang upAnd spoke their language.The how..

© Carl Sandburg

Loin Cloth

BODY of Jesus taken down from the crossCarved in ivory by a lover of Christ,It is a child's handful you are here,The breadth of a man's finger,And..

© Carl Sandburg

Localities

Wagon wheel gap is a place I never sawAnd Red Horse Gulch and the chutes of Cripple Creek.Red-shirted miners picking in the sluices,Gamblers with red..

© Carl Sandburg

Loam

In the loam we sleep,In the cool moist loam,To the lull of years that passAnd the break of stars,From the loam, then,The soft warm loam,We rise:To..

© Carl Sandburg

Limited

I am riding on a limited express, one of the crack trainsof the nation.Hurtling across the prairie into blue haze and dark airgo fifteen all-steel..

© Carl Sandburg

Letters To Dead Imagists

EMILY DICKINSON:You gave us the bumble bee who has a soul,The everlasting traveler among the hollyhocks,And how God plays around a back yard..

© Carl Sandburg

Letter S

THE RIVER is gold under a sunset of Illinois.It is a molten gold someone pours and changes.A woman mixing a wedding cake of butter and eggsKnows what..

© Carl Sandburg

Let Love Go On

LET it go on; let the love of this hour be poured out till all the answers are made,the last dollar spent and the last blood gone.Time runs with an..

© Carl Sandburg

Legends

CLOWNS DYINGFIVE circus clowns dying this year, morning newspapers toldtheir lives, how each one horizontal in a last gesture of hands arranged by..

© Carl Sandburg

Leather Leggings

THEY have taken the ball of earthand made it a little thing.They were held to the land and horses;they were held to the little seas.They have changed..

© Carl Sandburg

Lawyer

When the jury files in to deliver a verdict after weeks of direct and crossexaminations, hot clashesof lawyers and cool decisions of the judge,There..

© Carl Sandburg

Laughing Corn

There was a high majestic foolingDay before yesterday in the yellow corn.And day after to-morrow in the yellow cornThere will be high majestic..

© Carl Sandburg

Laughing Blue Steel

TWO fishes swimming in the sea,Two birds flying in the air,Two chisels on an anvil-maybe.Beaten, hammered, laughing blue steel to each..

© Carl Sandburg

Last Answers

I wrote a poem on the mistAnd a woman asked me what I meant by it.I had thought till then only of the beauty of the mist,how pearl and gray of it mix..

© Carl Sandburg

Languages

There are no handles upon a languageWhereby men take hold of itAnd mark it with signs for its remembrance.It is a river, this language,Once in a..

© Carl Sandburg

Kreisler

SELL me a violin, mister, of old mysterious wood.Sell me a fiddle that has kissed dark nights on the forehead where men kisssisters they love.Sell me..

© Carl Sandburg

Knucks

In Abraham Lincoln's city,Where they remember his lawyer's shingle,The place where they brought himWrapped in battle flags,Wrapped in the smoke of..

© Carl Sandburg

Kin

Brother, I am fireSurging under the ocean floor.I shall never meet you, brother—Not for years, anyhow;Maybe thousands of years, brother.Then I will..

© Carl Sandburg

Killers

I am singing to youSoft as a man with a dead child speaks;Hard as a man in handcuffs,Held where he cannot move:Under the sunAre sixteen million..

© Carl Sandburg

Killers

I AM put high over all others in the city today.I am the killer who kills for those who wish a killing today.Here is a strong young man who..

© Carl Sandburg