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").

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

Just Before April Came

THE SNOW piles in dark places are gone.Pools by the railroad tracks shine clear.The gravel of all shallow places shines.A white pigeon reels and..

© Carl Sandburg

Jungheimer's

In western fields of corn and northern timber lands,They talk about me, a saloon with a soul,The soft red lights, the long curving bar,The leather..

© Carl Sandburg

June

Paula is digging and shaping the loam of a salvia,Scarlet Chinese talker of summer.Two petals of crabapple blossom blow fallen in Paula'shair,And..

© Carl Sandburg

Jug

THE SHALE and water thrown together so-so first of all,Then a potter's hand on the wheel and his fingers shaping the jug; out of themud a mouth and a..

© Carl Sandburg

Joy

Let a joy keep you.Reach out your handsAnd take it when it runs by,As the Apache dancerClutches his woman.I have seen themLive long and laugh..

© Carl Sandburg

Joliet

ON the one hand the steel works.On the other hand the penitentiary.Sante Fe trains and Alton trainsBetween smokestacks on the westAnd gray walls on..

© Carl Sandburg

John Ericsson Day Memorial, 1918

INTO the gulf and the pit of the dark night, the cold night, there is a man goesinto the dark and the cold and when he comes back to his people he..

© Carl Sandburg

Jerry

Six years I worked in a knitting mill at a machineAnd then I married Jerry, the iceman, for a change.He weighed 240 pounds, and could hold me,Who..

© Carl Sandburg

Jazz Fantasia

Drum on your drums, batter on your banjoes,sob on the long cool winding saxophones.Go to it, O jazzmen.Sling your knuckles on the bottoms of the..

© Carl Sandburg

Jaws

Seven nations stood with their hands on the jaws of death.It was the first week in August, Nineteen Hundred Fourteen.I was listening, you were..

© Carl Sandburg

Jan Kubelik

Your bow swept over a string, and a long low note quivered to the air.(A mother of Bohemia sobs over a new child perfect learning to suck milk.)Your..

© Carl Sandburg

Jack London And O. Henry

BOTH were jailbirds; no speechmakers at all; speaking best with one foot on abrass rail; a beer glass in the left hand and the right hand employed..

© Carl Sandburg

Jack

Jack was a swarthy, swaggering son-of-a-gun.He worked thirty years on the railroad, ten hours a day, and his hands weretougher than sole leather.He..

© Carl Sandburg

Jabberers

I RISE out of my depths with my language.You rise out of your depths with your language.Two tongues from the depths,Alike only as a yellow cat and a..

© Carl Sandburg

Iron

Guns,Long, steel guns,Pointed from the war shipsIn the name of the war god.Straight, shining, polished guns,Clambered over with jackies in white..

© Carl Sandburg

Interior

In the cool of the night timeThe clocks pick off the pointsAnd the mainsprings loosen.They will need winding.One of these daysthey will need..

© Carl Sandburg