Home ⇒ 📌Carl Sandburg ⇒ An Electric Sign Goes Dark
An Electric Sign Goes Dark
POLAND, France, Judea ran in her veins,
Singing to Paris for bread, singing to Gotham in a fizz at the pop of a bottle’s cork.
ВЂњWon’t you come and play wiz me” she sang … and “I just can’t make my eyes behave. ”
ВЂњHiggeldy-Piggeldy, ” “Papa’s Wife, ” “Follow Me” were plays.
Did she wash her feet in a tub of milk? Was a strand of pearls sneaked from her trunk? The newspapers asked.
Cigarettes, tulips, pacing horses, took her name.
Twenty years old … thirty … forty …
Forty-five and the doctors fathom nothing, the doctors quarrel, the doctors use silver tubes feeding twenty-four quarts of blood into the veins, the respects of a prize-fighter, a cab driver.
And a little mouth moans: It is easy to die when they are dying so many grand deaths in France.
A voice, a shape, gone.
A baby bundle from Warsaw … legs, torso, head … on a hotel bed at The Savoy.
The white chiselings of flesh that flung themselves in somersaults, straddles, for packed houses:
A memory, a stage and footlights out, an electric sign on Broadway dark.
She belonged to somebody, nobody.
No one man owned her, no ten nor a thousand.
She belonged to many thousand men, lovers of the white chiseling of arms and shoulders, the ivory of a laugh, the bells of song.
Railroad brakemen taking trains across Nebraska prairies, lumbermen jaunting in pine and tamarack of the Northwest, stock ranchers in the middle west, mayors of southern cities
Say to their pals and wives now: I see by the papers Anna Held is dead.
(2 votes, average: 3.00 out of 5)Related poetry:
- The Sign-Post The dim sea glints chill. The white sun is shy, And the skeleton weeds and the never-dry, Rough, long grasses keep white with frost At the hill-top by the finger-post; The smoke of the traveller’s-joy is puffed Over hawthorn berry and hazel tuft. I read the sign. Which way shall I go? A voice says: […]...
- A Rhyme About an Electrical Advertising Sign I LOOK on the specious electrical light Blatant, mechanical, crawling and white, Wickedly red or malignantly green Like the beads of a young Senegambian queen. Showing, while millions of souls hurry on, The virtues of collars, from sunset till dawn, By dart or by tumble of whirl within whirl, Starting new fads for the shame-weary […]...
- The Electric Slide Boogie New Year’s Day 1:16 AM And my body is weary beyond Time to withdraw and rest Ample room allowed me in everyone’s head But community calls Right over the threshold Drums beating through the walls Children playing their truck dramas Under the collapsible coatrack In the narrow hallway outside my room The TV lounge next […]...
- I Sing The Body Electric People sit numbly at the counter Waiting for breakfast or service. Today it’s Hartford, Connecticut More than twenty-five years after The last death of Wallace Stevens. I have come in out of the cold And wind of a Sunday morning Of early March, and I seem to be Crying, but I’m only freezing And unpeeled. […]...
- We grow accustomed to the Dark We grow accustomed to the Dark When light is put away As when the Neighbor holds the Lamp To witness her Goodbye A Moment We uncertain step For newness of the night Then fit our Vision to the Dark And meet the Road erect And so of larger Darkness Those Evenings of the Brain When […]...
- Sign-Post Civilized, crying: how to be human again; this will tell you how. Turn outward, love things, not men, turn right away from humanity, Let that doll lie. Consider if you like how the lilies grow, Lean on the silent rock until you feel its divinity Make your veins cold; look at the silent stars, let […]...
- On Broadway About me young careless feet Linger along the garish street; Above, a hundred shouting signs Shed down their bright fantastic glow Upon the merry crowd and lines Of moving carriages below. Oh wonderful is Broadway only My heart, my heart is lonely. Desire naked, linked with Passion, Goes trutting by in brazen fashion; From playhouse, […]...
- Crabapple Blossoms SOMEBODY’S little girl-how easy to make a sob story over who she was once and who she is now. Somebody’s little girl-she played once under a crab-apple tree in June and the blossoms fell on the dark hair. It was somewhere on the Erie line and the town was Salamanca or Painted Post or Horse’s […]...
- A Sign-Seeker I MARK the months in liveries dank and dry, The day-tides many-shaped and hued; I see the nightfall shades subtrude, And hear the monotonous hours clang negligently by. I view the evening bonfires of the sun On hills where morning rains have hissed; The eyeless countenance of the mist Pallidly rising when the summer droughts […]...
- When the Dark Comes Down When the dark comes down, oh, the wind is on the sea With lisping laugh and whimper to the red reef’s threnody, The boats are sailing homeward now across the harbor bar With many a jest and many a shout from fishing grounds afar. So furl your sails and take your rest, ye fisher folk […]...
- Written near a Port on a Dark Evening Huge vapours brood above the clifted shore, Night on the ocean settles dark and mute, Save where is heard the repercussive roar Of drowsy billows on the rugged foot Of rocks remote; or still more distant tone Of seamen in the anchored bark that tell The watch relieved; or one deep voice alone Singing the […]...
- I Sing the Body Electric 1 I SING the Body electric; The armies of those I love engirth me, and I engirth them; They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them, And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the Soul. Was it doubted that those who corrupt their own bodies […]...
- The Dark House Where a faint light shines alone, Dwells a Demon I have known. Most of you had better say “The Dark House,” and go your way. Do not wonder if I stay. For I know the Demon’s eyes And their lure that never dies. Banish all your fond alarms, For I know the foiling charms Of […]...
- Doctors They work with herbs And penicillin They work with gentleness And the scalpel. They dig out the cancer, Close an incision And say a prayer To the poverty of the skin. They are not Gods Though they would like to be; They are only a human Trying to fix up a human. Many humans die. […]...
- It's Dark in Here I am writing these poems From inside a lion, And it’s rather dark in here. So please excuse the handwriting Which may not be too clear. But this afternoon by the lion’s cage I’m afraid I got too near. And I’m writing these lines From inside a lion, And it’s rather dark in here....
- Dark Night (John of the Cross) In a dark night, when the light burning was the burning of love (fortuitous night, fated, free, ) as I stole from my dark house, dark house that was silent, grave, sleeping, by the staircase that was secret, hidden, safe: disguised by darkness (fortuitous night, fated, free, ) by darkness and […]...
- I see thee better in the Dark I see thee better in the Dark I do not need a Light The Love of Thee a Prism be Excelling Violet I see thee better for the Years That hunch themselves between The Miner’s Lamp sufficient be To nullify the Mine And in the Grave I see Thee best Its little Panels be Aglow […]...
- From the Dark Tower We shall not always plant while others reap The golden increment of bursting fruit, Not always countenance, abject and mute, That lesser men should hold their brothers cheap; Not everlastingly while others sleep Shall we beguile their limbs with mellow flute, Not always bend to some more subtle brute; We were not made to eternally […]...
- The Dark Cavalier I am the Dark Cavalier; I am the Last Lover: My arms shall welcome you when other arms are tired; I stand to wait for you, patient in the darkness, Offering forgetfulness of all that you desired. I ask no merriment, no pretense of gladness, I can love heavy lids and lips without their rose; […]...
- In A Dark Time In a dark time, the eye begins to see, I meet my shadow in the deepening shade; I hear my echo in the echoing wood A lord of nature weeping to a tree, I live between the heron and the wren, Beasts of the hill and serpents of the den. What’s madness but nobility of […]...
- The Dark and the Fair A roaring company that festive night; The beast of dialectic dragged his chains, Prowling from chair to chair is the smoking light, While the snow hissed against the windowpanes. Our politics, our science, and our faith Were whiskey on the tongue; I, being rent By the fierce divisions of our time, cried death And death […]...
- Wild Dark Love Song Her man, A wild dark love song Borne deep within her gypsy soul He’s gone to live in jagged mountains Where salmon jump and sing In tarns High above The cloud lines Beyond the silver moon In the shadow of the Cader Idris In misty mountains Where meadowlarks are known to wing And wild geese […]...
- 245. Versicles on Sign-Posts CURS’D be the man, the poorest wretch in life, The crouching vassal to a tyrant wife! Who has no will but by her high permission, Who has not sixpence but in her possession; Who must to he, his dear friend’s secrets tell, Who dreads a curtain lecture worse than hell. Were such the wife had […]...
- The Dark Hour And now, when merry winds do blow, And rain makes trees look fresh, An overpowering staleness holds This mortal flesh. Though well I love to feel the rain, And be by winds well blown The mystery of mortal life Doth press me down. And, In this mood, come now what will, Shine Rainbow, Cuckoo call; […]...
- The Dark Hills Dark hills at evening in the west, Where sunset hovers like a sound Of golden horns that sang to rest Old bones of warriors under ground, Far now from all the bannered ways Where flash the legions of the sun, You fade as if the last of days Were fading, and all wars were done....
- Through the Dark Sod as Education Through the Dark Sod as Education The Lily passes sure Feels her white foot no trepidation Her faith no fear Afterward in the Meadow Swinging her Beryl Bell The Mold-life all forgotten now In Ecstasy and Dell...
- Under Her Dark Veil Under her dark veil she wrung her hands. “Why are you so pale today?” “Because I made him drink of stinging grief Until he got drunk on it. How can I forget? He staggered out, His mouth twisted in agony. I ran down not touching the bannister And caught up with him at the gate. […]...
- My wheel is in the dark! My wheel is in the dark! I cannot see a spoke Yet know its dripping feet Go round and round. My foot is on the Tide! An unfrequented road Yet have all roads A clearing at the end Some have resigned the Loom Some in the busy tomb Find quaint employ Some with new stately […]...
- The Door in the Dark In going from room to room in the dark, I reached out blindly to save my face, But neglected, however lightly, to lace My fingers and close my arms in an arc. A slim door got in past my guard, And hit me a blow in the head so hard I had my native simile […]...
- The Dark Forest Dark is the forest and deep, and overhead Hang stars like seeds of light In vain, though not since they were sown was bred Anything more bright. And evermore mighty multitudes ride About, nor enter in; Of the other multitudes that dwell inside Never yet was one seen. The forest foxglove is purple, the marguerite […]...
- Another Dark Lady Think not, because I wonder where you fled, That I would lift a pin to see you there; You may, for me, be prowling anywhere, So long as you show not your little head: No dark and evil story of the dead Would leave you less pernicious or less fair- Not even Lilith, with her […]...
- Lip-Stick Liz Oh Lip-Stick Liz was in the biz, That’s the oldest known in history; She had a lot of fancy rags, Of her form she made no myst’ry. She had a man, a fancy man, His name was Alexander, And he used to beat her up because he couldn’t understand her. Now Lip-Stick Liz she loved […]...
- 339. Song-O for ane an' twenty, Tam Chorus.-An’ O for ane an’ twenty, Tam! And hey, sweet ane an’ twenty, Tam! I’ll learn my kin a rattlin’ sang, An’ I saw ane an’ twenty, Tam. THEY snool me sair, and haud me down, An’ gar me look like bluntie, Tam; But three short years will soon wheel roun’, An’ then comes ane […]...
- In the Dark Pine-Wood In the dark pine-wood I would we lay, In deep cool shadow At noon of day. How sweet to lie there, Sweet to kiss, Where the great pine-forest Enaisled is! Thy kiss descending Sweeter were With a soft tumult Of thy hair. O unto the pine-wood At noon of day Come with me now, Sweet […]...
- The Dark House Dusk in the rain-soaked garden, And dark the house within. A door creaked: someone was early To watch the dawn begin. But he stole away like a thief In the chilly, star-bright air: Though the house was shuttered for slumber, He had left one wakeful there. Nothing moved in the garden. Never a bird would […]...
- My Soul is Dark My soul is dark – Oh! quickly string The harp I yet can brook to hear; And let thy gentle fingers fling Its melting murmurs o’er mine ear. If in this heart a hope be dear, That sound shall charm it forth again: If in these eyes there lurk a tear, ‘Twill flow, and cease […]...
- In Memoriam A. H. H.: 7. Dark house, by which once more I s Dark house, by which once more I stand Here in the long unlovely street, Doors, where my heart was used to beat So quickly, waiting for a hand, A hand that can be clasp’d no more Behold me, for I cannot sleep, And like a guilty thing I creep At earliest morning to the door. […]...
- The Bird With The Dark Plumes The bird with the dark plumes in my blood, That never for one moment however I patched my truces Consented to make peace with the people, It is pitiful now to watch her pleasure In a breath of tempest Breaking the sad promise of spring. Are these that morose hawk’s wings, vaulting, a mere mad […]...
- Senlin: His Dark Origins 1 Senlin sits before us, and we see him. He smokes his pipe before us, and we hear him. Is he small, with reddish hair, Does he light his pipe with meditative stare, And a pointed flame reflected in both eyes? Is he sad and happy and foolish and wise? Did no one see him […]...
- Dark Truth Birds have no consciousness of doom: Yon thrush that serenades me daily From scented snow of hawthorn bloom Would not trill out his glee so gaily, Could he foretell his songful breath Would sadly soon be stilled in death. Yon lambs that frolic on the lea And incarnate the joy of life, Would scarce disport […]...