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").

Prayers Of Steel

Lay me on an anvil, O God.Beat me and hammer me into a crowbar.Let me pry loose old walls.Let me lift and loosen old foundations.Lay me on an anvil..

© Carl Sandburg

Prayers After World War

WANDERING oversea dreamer,Hunting and hoarse, Oh daughter and mother,Oh daughter of ashes and mother of blood,Child of the hair let down, and..

© Carl Sandburg

Prairie Waters By Night

Chatter of birds two by two raises a night song joining a litany of running water--sheer watersshowing the russet of old stones remembering many..

© Carl Sandburg

Prairie

I WAS born on the prairie and the milk of its wheat, the red of its clover, theeyes of its women, gave me a song and aslogan.Here the water went..

© Carl Sandburg

Potomac Town In February

THE BRIDGE says: Come across, try me; see how good I am.The big rock in the river says: Look at me; learn how to stand up.The white water says: I go..

© Carl Sandburg

Potomac River Mist

All the policemen, saloonkeepers and efficiency experts in Toledoknew Bern Dailey; secretary ten years when Whitlock was mayor.Pickpockets, yeggs..

© Carl Sandburg

Potato Blossom Songs And Jigs

RUM tiddy um,tiddy um,tiddy um tum tum.My knees are loose-like, my feet want to sling their selves.I feel like tickling you under the chin-honey-and..

© Carl Sandburg

Portrait Of A Motor Car

IT'S a lean car ... a long-legged dog of a car ... a gray-ghost eagle car.The feet of it eat the dirt of a road ... the wings of it eat the..

© Carl Sandburg

Portrait

(For S. A.)TO write one book in five yearsor five books in one year,to be the painter and the thing painted,... where are we, bo?Wait-get his..

© Carl Sandburg

Population Drifts

New-mown hay smell and wind of the plain made hera woman whose ribs had the power of the hills inthem and her hands were tough for work and therewas..

© Carl Sandburg

Poppies

She loves blood-red poppies for a garden to walk in.In a loose white gown she walksand a new child tugs at cords in her body.Her head to the west at..

© Carl Sandburg

Pool

Out of the fireCame a man sunkenTo less than cinders,A tea-cup of ashes or so.And I,The gold in the house,Writhed into a stiff pool.

© Carl Sandburg

Poems Done On A Late Night Car

I. CHICKENSI am The Great White Way of the city:When you ask what is my desire, I answer:"Girls fresh as country wild flowers,With young faces tired..

© Carl Sandburg

Pods

PEA pods cling to stems.Neponset, the village,Clings to the Burlington railway main line.Terrible midnight limiteds roar throughHauling sleepers to..

© Carl Sandburg

Plowboy

After the last red sunset glimmer,Black on the line of a low hill rise,Formed into moving shadows, I sawA plowboy and two horses lined against the..

© Carl Sandburg

Plaster

'I KNEW a real man once,' says Agatha in the splendor of a shagbark hickorytree.Did a man touch his lips to Agatha? Did a man hold her in his arms?..

© Carl Sandburg

Places

ROSES and goldFor you today,And the flash of flying flags.I will haveAshes,Dust in my hair,Crushes of hoofs.Your nameFills the mouthOf rich man and..

© Carl Sandburg

Pigeon

THE FLUTTER of blue pigeon's wingsUnder a river bridgeHunting a clean dry arch,A corner for a sleepThis flutters here in a woman's hand.A singing..

© Carl Sandburg

Picnic Boat

Sunday night and the park policemen tell each other itis dark as a stack of black cats on Lake Michigan.A big picnic boat comes home to Chicago from..

© Carl Sandburg

Pick Offs

THE TELESCOPE picks off star duston the clean steel sky and sends it to me.The telephone picks off my voice andsends it cross country a thousand..

© Carl Sandburg

Personality

Musings of a Police Reporter in the Identification BureauYou have loved forty women, but you have only one thumb.You have led a hundred secret lives..

© Carl Sandburg

People With Proud Chins

I TELL them where the wind comes from,Where the music goes when the fiddle is in the box.Kids-I saw one with a proud chin, a sleepyhead,And the..

© Carl Sandburg

People Who Must

I painted on the roof of a skyscraper.I painted a long while and called it a day's work.The people on the corner swarmed and the traffic cop's..

© Carl Sandburg

Pennsylvania

I have been in Pennsylvania,In the Monongahela and Hocking Valleys.In the blue SusquehannaOn a Saturday morningI saw a mounted constabulary go by,I..

© Carl Sandburg

Pencils

telling where the wind comes fromopen a story.Pencilstelling where the wind goesend a story.These eager pencilscome to a stop.. only.. when the stars..

© Carl Sandburg