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 hills. Danny the driver

I AM making a Cartoon of a Woman. She is the People. She is the Great Dirty Mother. And Many Children hang on her Apron, crawl at her Feet, snuggle at her Breasts.

SELL me a violin, mister, of old mysterious wood. Sell me a fiddle that has kissed dark nights on the forehead where men kiss sisters they love. Sell me dried wood that has ached

THEY were calling certain styles of whiskers by the name of “lilacs.” And another manner of beard assumed in their chatter a verbal guise Of “mutton chops,” “galways,” “feather dusters.” Metaphors such as these

LET it go on; let the love of this hour be poured out till all the answers are made, the last dollar spent and the last blood gone. Time runs with an ax and

TWENTY men stand watching the muckers. Stabbing the sides of the ditch Where clay gleams yellow, Driving the blades of their shovels Deeper and deeper for the new gas mains Wiping sweat off their

STORMS have beaten on this point of land And ships gone to wreck here And the passers-by remember it With talk on the deck at night As they near it. Fists have beaten on

THE MILK drops on your chin, Helga, Must not interfere with the cranberry red of your cheeks Nor the sky winter blue of your eyes. Let your mammy keep hands off the chin. This

I THOUGHT of killing myself because I am only a bricklayer and you a woman who loves the man who runs a drug store. I don’t care like I used to; I lay bricks

PIETRO has twenty red and blue balloons on a string. They flutter and dance pulling Pietro’s arm. A nickel apiece is what they sell for. Wishing children tag Pietro’s heels. He sells out and

I WILL read ashes for you, if you ask me. I will look in the fire and tell you from the gray lashes And out of the red and black tongues and stripes, I

The monotone of the rain is beautiful, And the sudden rise and slow relapse Of the long multitudinous rain. The sun on the hills is beautiful, Or a captured sunset sea-flung, Bannered with fire

YOUR eyes and the valley are memories. Your eyes fire and the valley a bowl. It was here a moonrise crept over the timberline. It was here we turned the coffee cups upside down.

I ASKED the professors who teach the meaning of life to tell Me what is happiness. And I went to famous executives who boss the work of Thousands of men. They all shook their

THE HIGH horses of the sea broke their white riders On the walls that held and counted the hours The wind lasted. Two landbirds looked on and the north and the east Looked on

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

IN the moonlight under a shag-bark hickory tree Watching the yellow shadows melt in hoof-pools, Listening to the yes and the no of a woman’s hands, I kept my guess why the night was

Paula is digging and shaping the loam of a salvia, Scarlet Chinese talker of summer. Two petals of crabapple blossom blow fallen in Paula’s hair, And fluff of white from a cottonwood.

THE WEST window is a panel of marching onions. Five new lilacs nod to the wind and fence boards. The rain dry fence boards, the stained knot holes, heliograph a peace. (How long ago

AMONG the mountains I wandered and saw blue haze and Red crag and was amazed; On the beach where the long push under the endless tide Maneuvers, I stood silent; Under the stars on

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

BEND low again, night of summer stars. So near you are, sky of summer stars, So near, a long arm man can pick off stars, Pick off what he wants in the sky bowl,

THE DOME of the capitol looks to the Potomac river. Out of haze over the sunset, Out of a smoke rose gold: One star shines over the sunset. Night takes the dome and the

PENCILS Telling where the wind comes from open a story. Pencils Telling where the wind goes end a story. These eager pencils Come to a stop .. only.. when the stars high over Come

SUNDAY night and the park policemen tell each other it Is dark as a stack of black cats on Lake Michigan. A big picnic boat comes home to Chicago from the peach Farms of

THE BALLOONS hang on wires in the Marigold Gardens. They spot their yellow and gold, they juggle their blue and red, they float their faces on the face of the sky. Balloon face eaters

HAVE me in the blue and the sun. Have me on the open sea and the mountains. When I go into the grass of the sea floor, I will go alone. This is where

I AM a copper wire slung in the air, Slim against the sun I make not even a clear line of shadow. Night and day I keep singing humming and thrumming: It is love

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 the horse heads of the

The young child, Christ, is straight and wise And asks questions of the old men, questions Found under running water for all children And found under shadows thrown on still waters By tall trees

EVERY year Emily Dickinson sent one friend The first arbutus bud in her garden. In a last will and testament Andrew Jackson Remembered a friend with the gift of George Washington’s pocket spy-glass. Napoleon

A GOLDWING moth is between the scissors and the ink bottle on the desk. Last night it flew hundreds of circles around a glass bulb and a flame wire. The wings are a soft

THE PEACE of great doors be for you. Wait at the knobs, at the panel oblongs. Wait for the great hinges. The peace of great churches be for you, Where the players of loft

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 tears, Child of the cross in the south And

THE LAW says you and I belong to each other, George. The law says you are mine and I am yours, George. And there are a million miles of white snowstorms, a million furnaces

HERE in a cage the dollars come down. To the click of a tube the dollars tumble. And out of a mouth the dollars run. I finger the dollars, Paper and silver, Thousands a

FIRST I would like to write for you a poem to be shouted in the teeth of a strong wind. Next I would like to write one for you to sit on a hill

EMPTY battlefields keep their phantoms. Grass crawls over old gun wheels And a nodding Canada thistle flings a purple Into the summer’s southwest wind, Wrapping a root in the rust of a bayonet, Reaching

I HAVE ransacked the encyclopedias And slid my fingers among topics and titles Looking for you. And the answer comes slow. There seems to be no answer. I shall ask the next banana peddler

Sling me under the sea. Pack me down in the salt and wet. No farmer’s plow shall touch my bones. No Hamlet hold my jaws and speak How jokes are gone and empty is

I CRIED over beautiful things knowing no beautiful thing lasts. The field of cornflower yellow is a scarf at the neck of the copper sunburned woman, the mother of the year, the taker of

SIX street ends come together here. They feed people and wagons into the center. In and out all day horses with thoughts of nose-bags, Men with shovels, women with baskets and baby buggies. Six

I WILL keep you and bring hands to hold you against a great hunger. I will run a spear in you for a great gladness to die with. I will stab you between the