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").

Broken Tabernacles

Have I broken the smaller tabernacles, O Lord?And in the destruction of these set up the greater and massive, the everlastingtabernacles?I know..

© Carl Sandburg

Broadway

I shall never forget you, BroadwayYour golden and calling lights.I’ll remember you long,Tall-walled river of rush and play.Hearts that know you hate..

© Carl Sandburg

Bringers

Cover me overIn dusk and dust and dreams.Cover me overAnd leave me alone.Cover me over,You tireless, great.Hear me and cover me,Bringers of dusk and..

© Carl Sandburg

Bricklayer Love

I thought of killing myself because I am only a bricklayerand you a woman who loves the man who runs a drug store.I don't care like I used to; I lay..

© Carl Sandburg

Brass Keys

JOY ... weaving two violet petals for a coat lapel ... painting on a slab of nightsky a Christ face ... slipping new brass keys into rusty iron locks..

© Carl Sandburg

Branches

The long beautiful night of the wind and rain in April,The long night hanging down from the drooping branches of the top of a birchtree,Swinging..

© Carl Sandburg

Boy And Father

THE BOY Alexander understands his father to be a famous lawyer.The leather law books of Alexander's father fill a room like hay in a barn.Alexander..

© Carl Sandburg

Bones

Sling me under the sea.Pack me down in the salt and wet.No farmer’s plow shall touch my bones.No Hamlet hold my jaws and speakHow jokes are gone and..

© Carl Sandburg

'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