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").

'Boes

I waited today for a freight train to pass.Cattle cars with steers butting their horns against thebars, went by.And a half a dozen hoboes stood on..

© Carl Sandburg

Blue Ridge

BORN a million years ago you stay here a million years ...watching the women come and live and be laid away ...you and they thin-gray thin-dusk..

© Carl Sandburg

Blue Maroons

'YOU ****,' he flung at her.It was more than a hundred timesHe had thrown it into her faceAnd by this time it meant nothing to her.She said to..

© Carl Sandburg

Blue Island Intersection

Six streets come together here.They feed people and wagons into the center.In and out all day horses with thoughts of nose-bags,Men with shovels..

© Carl Sandburg

Blizzard Notes

I DON'T blame the kettle drums-they are hungry.And the snare drums-I know what they want-they are empty too.And the harring booming bass drums-they..

© Carl Sandburg

Blacklisted

Why shall I keep the old name?What is a name anywhere anyway?A name is a cheap thing all fathers and mothers leave each child:A job is a job and I..

© Carl Sandburg

Bilbea

BILBEA, I was in Babylon on Saturday night.I saw nothing of you anywhere.I was at the old place and the other girls were there, but no Bilbea.Have..

© Carl Sandburg

Between Two Hills

Between two hillsThe old town stands.The houses loomAnd the roofs and treesAnd the dusk and the dark,The damp and the dewAre there.The prayers are..

© Carl Sandburg

Bath

A man saw the whole world as a grinning skull and cross-bones. The rose flesh oflife shriveled from all faces. Nothing counts. Everything is a fake...

© Carl Sandburg

Bas-Relief

Five geese deploy mysteriously.Onward proudly with flagstaffs,Hearses with silver bugles,Bushes of plum-blossoms droppingFor ten mystic..

© Carl Sandburg

Basket

speak, sir, and be wise.Speak choosing your words, sir, like an old woman over a bushel of apples.

© Carl Sandburg

Band Concert

Band concert public square Nebraska city. Flowing and circling dresses, summerwhite dresses. Faces, flesh tints flung like sprays of cherry blossoms...

© Carl Sandburg

Baltic Fog Notes

Seven days all fog, all mist, and the turbines pounding through high seas.I was a plaything, a rat’s neck in the teeth of a scuffling mastiff.Fog and..

© Carl Sandburg

Balloon Faces

The Balloons hang on wires in the Marigold Gardens.They spot their yellow and gold, they juggle their blue and red, they float theirfaces on the face..

© Carl Sandburg

Back Yard

Shine on, O moon of summer.Shine to the leaves of grass, catalpa and oak,All silver under your rain to-night.An Italian boy is sending songs to you..

© Carl Sandburg

Baby Vamps

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..

© Carl Sandburg

Baby Toes

There is a blue star, Janet,Fifteen years’ ride from us,If we ride a hundred miles an hour.There is a white star, Janet,Forty years’ ride from us,If..

© Carl Sandburg

Baby Face

White moon comes in on a baby face.The shafts across her bed are flimmering.Out on the land White Moon shines,Shines and glimmers against gnarled..

© Carl Sandburg

Aztec Mask

I wanted a man’s face looking into the jaws and throat of lifeWith something proud on his face, so proud no smash of the jaws,No gulp of the throat..

© Carl Sandburg

Aztec

You came from the AztecsWith a copper on your fore-armsTawnier than a sunsetSaying good-by to an even river.And I said, you remember,Those fore-arms..

© Carl Sandburg

Autumn Movement

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..

© Carl Sandburg

At A Window

Give me hunger,O you gods that sit and giveThe world its orders.Give me hunger, pain and want,Shut me out with shame and failureFrom your doors of..

© Carl Sandburg

Ashurnatsirpal Iii

Three walls around the town of Tela when I came.They expected everything of those walls;Nobody in the town came out to kiss my feet.I knocked the..

© Carl Sandburg

Aprons Of Silence

Many things I might have said today.And I kept my mouth shut.So many times I was askedTo come and say the same thingsEverybody was saying, no endTo..

© Carl Sandburg

Anna Imroth

Cross the hands over the breast here--so.Straighten the legs a little more--so.And call for the wagon to come and take her home.Her mother will cry..

© Carl Sandburg