Halsted Street Car (by Carl Sandburg)

Carl Sandburg
Halsted Street Car
by Carl Sandburg
from Chicago Poems [1916]

     Come you, cartoonists, 
     Hang on a strap with me here 
     At seven o’clock in the morning 
     On a Halsted street car. 

          Take your pencils 
          And draw these faces.

Try with your pencils for these crooked faces,
That pig-sticker in one corner–his mouth–
That overall factory girl–her loose cheeks. 

          Find for your pencils 
          A way to mark your memory 
          Of tired empty faces. 

          After their night’s sleep, 
          In the moist dawn 
          And cool daybreak, 
               Faces 
          Tired of wishes, 
          Empty of dreams.

A.E.F. (by Carl Sandburg)

Carl Sandburg

A.E.F.
by Carl Sandburg
from Smoke and Steel  [1920]

There will be a rusty gun on the wall, sweetheart,
The rifle grooves curling with flakes of rust.
A spider will make a silver string nest in the darkest, warmest corner of it.
The trigger and the range-finder, they too will be rusty.
And no hands will polish the gun, and it will hang on the wall.
Forefingers and thumbs will point casually toward it.
It will be spoken among half-forgotten, wished-to-be-forgotten things.
They will tell the spider: Go on, you’re doing good work.

*

Glimmer (by Carl Sandburg)

Carl Sandburg

Glimmer
by Carl Sandburg
from Smoke and Steel  [1920]

Let down your braids of hair, lady.
Cross your legs and sit before the looking-glass
And gaze long on lines under your eyes.
Life writes; men dance.
And you know how men pay women.

*

Hummingbird Woman (by Carl Sandburg)

Carl Sandburg

Hummingbird Woman
by Carl Sandburg
from Smoke and Steel  [1916, Harcourt, Brace & Howe]

Why should I be wondering
How you would look in black velvet and yellow?
                    in orange and green?
I who cannot remember whether it was a dash of blue
Or a whirr of red under your willow throat–
Why do I wonder how you would look in hummingbird feathers?

*

His Own Face Hidden (by Carl Sandburg)

Carl Sandburg

His Own Face Hidden
by Carl Sandburg
from Smoke and Steel  [1916, Harcourt, Brace & Howe]

Hokusai’s portrait of himself
Tells what his hat was like
And his arms and legs. The only faces
Are a river and a mountain
And two laughing farmers.

     The smile of Hokusai
     is under his hat.




*

Five Towns on the B. and O. (by Carl Sandburg)

Carl Sandburg

Five Towns on the B. and O.
by Carl Sandburg
from Smoke and Steel  [1916, Harcourt, Brace & Howe]

By day … tireless smokestacks … hungry smoky shanties hanging to
     the slopes … crooning:
     We get by, that’s all.
By night … all lit up … fire-gold bars, fire-gold flues … and the shanties
     shaking in clumsy shadows … almost the hills shaking … all crooning:
     By God, we’re going to find out or know why.



*

Spanish (by Carl Sandburg)

Carl Sandburg

Spanish
by Carl Sandburg
from Smoke and Steel  [1916, Harcourt, Brace & Howe]

Fasten black eyes on me.
I ask nothing of you under the peach trees,
Fasten your black eyes in my gray
               with the spear of a storm.
The air under the peach blossoms is a haze of pink.



*

Chooose (by Carl Sandburg)

 

Carl Sandburg

Chooose
by Carl Sandburg
from Chicago Poems, 1916

     The single clenched fist lifted and ready,
Or the open asking hand held out and waiting. 
                     Choose:
For we meet by one or the other.


*

Subway (by Carl Sandburg)

Carl Sandburg

Subway
by Carl Sandburg
from Chicago Poems, 1916

Down between the walls of shadow
Where the iron laws insist,
     The hunger voices mock.

The worn wayfaring men
With the hunched and humble shoulders,
     Throw their laughter into toil.

Lost (by Carl Sandburg)

Carl Sandburg

Lost
by Carl Sandburg
from Chicago Poems, 1916

Desolate and lone
All night long on the lake
Where fog trails and mist creeps,
The whistle of a boat
Calls and cries unendingly,
Like some lost child
In tears and trouble
Hunting the harbor’s breast
And the harbor’s eyes.


* * * *