Manufactured Gods

THEY put up big wooden gods.
Then they burned the big wooden gods
And put up brass gods and
Changing their minds suddenly
Knocked down the brass gods and put up
A doughface god with gold earrings.
The poor mutts, the pathetic slant heads,
They didn’t know a little tin god
Is as good as anything in the line of gods
Nor how a little tin god answers prayer
And makes rain and brings luck
The same as a big wooden god or a brass
God or a doughface god with golden
Earrings.

Similar poems:

Clean Curtains NEW neighbors came to the corner house at Congress and Green streets. The look of their clean white curtains was […]...

Horse Fiddle FIRST I would like to write for you a poem to be shouted in the teeth of a strong wind. […]...

For You THE PEACE of great doors be for you. Wait at the knobs, at the panel oblongs. Wait for the great […]...

Purple Martins IF we were such and so, the same as these, Maybe we too would be slingers and sliders, Tumbling half […]...

Chicago Hog Butcher for the World, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and the Nation’s Freight Handler; Stormy, husky, […]...

Gargoyle I SAW a mouth jeering. A smile of melted red iron ran over it. Its laugh was full of nails […]...

Blue Maroons “YOU slut,” he flung at her. It was more than a hundred times He had thrown it into her face […]...

Letters To Dead Imagists EMILY DICKINSON: You gave us the bumble bee who has a soul, The everlasting traveler among the hollyhocks, And how […]...

Dan EARLY May, after cold rain the sun baffling cold wind. Irish setter pup finds a corner near the cellar door, […]...

Anna Imroth CROSS the hands over the breast here so. Straighten the legs a little more so. And call for the wagon […]...

White Ash THERE is a woman on Michigan Boulevard keeps a parrot and goldfish and two white mice. She used to keep […]...

Dogheads AMONG the grassroots In the moonlight, who comes circling, red tongues and high noses? Is one of ’em Buck and […]...

Death Snips Proud Men DEATH is stronger than all the governments because the governments are men and men die and then death laughs: Now […]...

Four Preludes on Playthings of the Wind “The past is a bucket of ashes.” 1 THE WOMAN named To-morrow Sits with a hairpin in her teeth And […]...

Autumn Movement I CRIED over beautiful things knowing no beautiful thing lasts. The field of cornflower yellow is a scarf at the […]...

Hits and Runs I REMEMBER the Chillicothe ball players grappling the Rock Island ball players in a sixteen-inning game ended by darkness. And […]...

Cahoots PLAY it across the table. What if we steal this city blind? If they want any thing let ’em nail […]...

Films I HAVE kept all, not one is thrown away, not one given to the ragman, not one thrust in a […]...

The Great Hunt I cannot tell you now; When the wind’s drive and whirl Blow me along no longer, And the wind’s a […]...

Graceland TOMB of a millionaire, A multi-millionaire, ladies and gentlemen, Place of the dead where they spend every year The usury […]...

Jug THE SHALE and water thrown together so-so first of all, Then a potter’s hand on the wheel and his fingers […]...

Poems Done on a Late Night Car I. CHICKENS I am The Great White Way of the city: When you ask what is my desire, I answer: […]...

Follies Shaken, The blossoms of lilac, And shattered, The atoms of purple. Green dip the leaves, Darker the bark, Longer the […]...

In a Breath To the Williamson Brothers HIGH noon. White sun flashes on the Michigan Avenue Asphalt. Drum of hoofs and whirr of […]...

River Moons THE DOUBLE moon, one on the high back drop of the west, one on the curve of the river face, […]...

Trinity Place THE GRAVE of Alexander Hamilton is in Trinity yard at the end of Wall Street. The grave of Robert Fulton […]...

Statistics NAPOLEON shifted, Restless in the old sarcophagus And murmured to a watchguard: “Who goes there?” “Twenty-one million men, Soldiers, armies, […]...

Jungheimer’s In western fields of corn and northern timber lands, They talk about me, a saloon with a soul, The soft […]...

Buffalo Dusk THE BUFFALOES are gone. And those who saw the buffaloes are gone. Those who saw the buffaloes by thousands and […]...

Buffalo Bill BOY heart of Johnny Jones-aching to-day? Aching, and Buffalo Bill in town? Buffalo Bill and ponies, cowboys, Indians? Some of […]...