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").

Questionnaire

HAVE I told any man to be a liar for my sake?Have I sold ice to the poor in summer and coal to the poor in winter for the sakeof daughters who nursed..

© Carl Sandburg

Put Off The Wedding Five Times And Nobody Comes To It

(Handbook for Quarreling Lovers)I THOUGHT of offering you apothegms.I might have said, 'Dogs bark and the wind carries it away.'I might have said..

© Carl Sandburg

Purple Martins

IF we were such and so, the same as these,maybe we too would be slingers and sliders,tumbling half over in the water mirrors,tumbling half over at..

© Carl Sandburg

Proud And Beautiful

AFTER you have spent all the money modistes and manicures and mannikins willtake for fixing you over into a thing the people on the streets call..

© Carl Sandburg

Primer Lesson

Look out how you use proud words.When you let proud words go, it is not easy to call them back.They wear long boots, hard boots; they walk off proud;..

© Carl Sandburg

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