I Sang
I sang to you and the moon But only the moon remembers. I sang O reckless free-hearted free-throated rythms, Even the moon remembers them And is kind to me.
I Am The People, The Mob
I AM the people the mob the crowd the mass. Do you know that all the great work of the world is Done through me? I am the workingman, the inventor, the maker of
The Sea Hold
THE SEA is large. The sea hold on a leg of land in the Chesapeake hugs an early sunset and a last morning star over the oyster beds and the late clam boats of
Paula
NOTHING else in this song-only your face. Nothing else here-only your drinking, night-gray eyes. The pier runs into the lake straight as a rifle barrel. I stand on the pier and sing how I
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
Helga
THE WISHES on this child’s mouth Came like snow on marsh cranberries; The tamarack kept something for her; The wind is ready to help her shoes. The north has loved her; she will be
Ossawatomie
I DON’T know how he came, Shambling, dark, and strong. He stood in the city and told men: My people are fools, my people are young and strong, my people must learn, my people
Chicago
Hog Butcher for the World, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and the Nation’s Freight Handler; Stormy, husky, brawling, City of the Big Shoulders; They tell me you are wicked and I
Smoke
I SIT in a chair and read the newspapers. Millions of men go to war, acres of them are buried, guns and ships broken, cities burned, villages sent up in smoke, and children where
Pods
PEA pods cling to stems. Neponset, the village, Clings to the Burlington railway main line. Terrible midnight limiteds roar through Hauling sleepers to the Rockies and Sierras. The earth is slightly shaken And Neponset
Mohammed Bek Hadjetlache
THIS Mohammedan colonel from the Caucasus yells with his voice and wigwags with his arms. The interpreter translates, “I was a friend of Kornilov, he asks me what to do and I tell him.
House
TWO Swede families live downstairs and an Irish policeman upstairs, and an old soldier, Uncle Joe. Two Swede boys go upstairs and see Joe. His wife is dead, his only son is dead, and
Nocturne In A Deserted Brickyard
Stuff of the moon Runs on the lapping sand Out to the longest shadows. Under the curving willows, And round the creep of the wave line, Fluxions of yellow and dusk on the waters
Prairie Waters by Night
CHATTER of birds two by two raises a night song joining a litany of running water-sheer waters showing the russet of old stones remembering many rains. And the long willows drowse on the shoulders
Southern Pacific
HUNTINGTON sleeps in a house six feet long. Huntington dreams of railroads he built and owned. Huntington dreams of ten thousand men saying: Yes, sir. Blithery sleeps in a house six feet long. Blithery