A Poetry Thread

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Ddseddse said:
Appropriate since the OP on this thread was Sandberg...


Chicago​

By Carl Sandburg

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 believe them, for I have seen your painted women under the gas lamps luring the farm boys.
And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to kill again.
And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the faces of women and children I have seen the marks of wanton hunger.
And having answered so I turn once more to those who sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer and say to them:
Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.
Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the little soft cities;
Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning as a savage pitted against the wilderness,
Bareheaded,
Shoveling,
Wrecking,
Planning,
Building, breaking, rebuilding,
Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with white teeth,
Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young man laughs,
Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has never lost a battle,
Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse, and under his ribs the heart of the people,
Laughing!
Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.
Click to expand...


Hoodlums by Carl Sandburg
I AM a hoodlum, you are a hoodlum, we and all of us are a world of hoodlums—maybe so.
I hate and kill better men than I am, so do you, so do all of us—maybe—maybe so.
In the ends of my fingers the itch for another man’s neck, I want to see him hanging, one of dusk’s cartoons against the sunset.
This is the hate my father gave me, this was in my mother’s milk, this is you and me and all of us in a world of hoodlums—maybe so.
Let us go on, brother hoodlums, let us kill and kill, it has always been so, it will always be so, there is nothing more to it.
Let us go on, sister hoodlums, kill, kill, and kill, the torsoes of the world’s mother’s are tireless and the loins of the world’s fathers are strong—so go on—kill, kill, kill.
Lay them deep in the dirt, the stiffs we fixed, the cadavers bumped off, lay them deep and let the night winds of winter blizzards howl their burial service.
The night winds and the winter, the great white sheets of northern blizzards, who can sing better for the lost hoodlums the old requiem, “Kill him! kill him!…”
Today my son, to-morrow yours, the day after your next door neighbor’s—it is all in the wrists of the gods who shoot craps—it is anybody’s guess whose eyes shut next.
Being a hoodlum now, you and I, being all of us a world of hoodlums, let us take up the cry when the mob sluffs by on a thousand shoe soles, let us too yammer, “Kill him! kill him!…”
Let us do this now … for our mothers … for our sisters and wives … let us kill, kill, kill—for the torsoes of the women are tireless and the loins of the men are strong.
Chicago, July 29, 1919.
 
donbosco said:
Hoodlums by Carl Sandburg
I AM a hoodlum, you are a hoodlum, we and all of us are a world of hoodlums—maybe so.
I hate and kill better men than I am, so do you, so do all of us—maybe—maybe so.
In the ends of my fingers the itch for another man’s neck, I want to see him hanging, one of dusk’s cartoons against the sunset.
This is the hate my father gave me, this was in my mother’s milk, this is you and me and all of us in a world of hoodlums—maybe so.
Let us go on, brother hoodlums, let us kill and kill, it has always been so, it will always be so, there is nothing more to it.
Let us go on, sister hoodlums, kill, kill, and kill, the torsoes of the world’s mother’s are tireless and the loins of the world’s fathers are strong—so go on—kill, kill, kill.
Lay them deep in the dirt, the stiffs we fixed, the cadavers bumped off, lay them deep and let the night winds of winter blizzards howl their burial service.
The night winds and the winter, the great white sheets of northern blizzards, who can sing better for the lost hoodlums the old requiem, “Kill him! kill him!…”
Today my son, to-morrow yours, the day after your next door neighbor’s—it is all in the wrists of the gods who shoot craps—it is anybody’s guess whose eyes shut next.
Being a hoodlum now, you and I, being all of us a world of hoodlums, let us take up the cry when the mob sluffs by on a thousand shoe soles, let us too yammer, “Kill him! kill him!…”
Let us do this now … for our mothers … for our sisters and wives … let us kill, kill, kill—for the torsoes of the women are tireless and the loins of the men are strong.
Chicago, July 29, 1919.
Click to expand...


When I re-posted this poem five days ago I had no earthly idea that it would soon carry such pertinence.
 
LANDSCAPE WITH TRACTOR - Henry Taylor

How would it be if you took yourself off
to a house set well back from a dirt road,
with, say, three acres of grass bounded
by road, driveway, and vegetable garden?

Spring and summer you would mow the field,
not down to lawn, but with a bushhog,
every six weeks or so, just often enough
to give grass a chance, and keep weeds down.

And one day--call it August, hot, a storm
recently past, things green and growing a bit,
and you're mowing, with half your mind
on something you'd rather be doing, or did once.

Three rounds, and then on the straight
alongside the road, maybe three swaths in
from where you are now, you glimpse it. People
will toss all kinds of crap from their cars.

It's a clothing-store dummy, for God's sake.
Another two rounds, and you'll have to stop,
contend with it, at least pull it off to one side.
You keep going. Two rounds more, then down

off the tractor, and Christ! Not a dummy, a corpse.
The field tilts, whirls, then steadies as you run.
Telephone. Sirens. Two local doctors use pitchforks
to turn the body, some four days dead, and ripening.

And the cause of death no mystery: two bullet holes
in the breast of a well-dressed black woman
in perhaps her mid-thirties. They wrap her,
take her away. You take the rest of the day off.

Next day, you go back to the field, having
to mow over the damp dent in the tall grass
where bluebottle flies are still swirling,
but the bushhog disperses them, and all traces.

Weeks pass. You hear at the post office
that no one has come forward to say who she was.
Brought out from the city, they guess, and dumped
like a bag of beer cans. She was someone,

and now is no one, buried or burned
or dissected; but gone. And I ask you
again, how would it be? To go on with your life,
putting gas in the tractor, keeping down thistles,

and seeing, each time you pass that spot,
the form in the grass, the bright yellow skirt,
black shoes, the thing not quite like a face
whose gaze blasted past you at nothing

when the doctors heaved her over? To wonder,
from now on, what dope deal, betrayal,
or innocent refusal, brought her here,
and to know she will stay in that field till you die?
 
sringwal said:
LANDSCAPE WITH TRACTOR - Henry Taylor

How would it be if you took yourself off
to a house set well back from a dirt road,
with, say, three acres of grass bounded
by road, driveway, and vegetable garden?

Spring and summer you would mow the field,
not down to lawn, but with a bushhog,
every six weeks or so, just often enough
to give grass a chance, and keep weeds down.

And one day--call it August, hot, a storm
recently past, things green and growing a bit,
and you're mowing, with half your mind
on something you'd rather be doing, or did once.

Three rounds, and then on the straight
alongside the road, maybe three swaths in
from where you are now, you glimpse it. People
will toss all kinds of crap from their cars.

It's a clothing-store dummy, for God's sake.
Another two rounds, and you'll have to stop,
contend with it, at least pull it off to one side.
You keep going. Two rounds more, then down

off the tractor, and Christ! Not a dummy, a corpse.
The field tilts, whirls, then steadies as you run.
Telephone. Sirens. Two local doctors use pitchforks
to turn the body, some four days dead, and ripening.

And the cause of death no mystery: two bullet holes
in the breast of a well-dressed black woman
in perhaps her mid-thirties. They wrap her,
take her away. You take the rest of the day off.

Next day, you go back to the field, having
to mow over the damp dent in the tall grass
where bluebottle flies are still swirling,
but the bushhog disperses them, and all traces.

Weeks pass. You hear at the post office
that no one has come forward to say who she was.
Brought out from the city, they guess, and dumped
like a bag of beer cans. She was someone,

and now is no one, buried or burned
or dissected; but gone. And I ask you
again, how would it be? To go on with your life,
putting gas in the tractor, keeping down thistles,

and seeing, each time you pass that spot,
the form in the grass, the bright yellow skirt,
black shoes, the thing not quite like a face
whose gaze blasted past you at nothing

when the doctors heaved her over? To wonder,
from now on, what dope deal, betrayal,
or innocent refusal, brought her here,
and to know she will stay in that field till you die?
Click to expand...

DAMN. DAMN.
 
Icarus - Edward Field

Only the feathers floating around the hat
Showed that anything more spectacular had occurred
Than the usual drowning. The police preferred to ignore
The confusing aspects of the case,
And the witnesses ran off to a gang war.

So the report filed and forgotten in the archives read simply
Drowned, but it was wrong: Icarus
Had swum away, coming at last to the city
Where he rented a house and tended the garden.

That nice Mr. Hicks the neighbors called him,
Never dreaming that the gray, respectable suit
Concealed arms that had controlled huge wings
Nor that those sad, defeated eyes had once
Compelled the sun. And had he told them
They would have answered with a shocked, uncomprehending stare.

No, he could not disturb their neat front yards;
Yet all his books insisted that this was a horrible mistake:
What was he doing aging in a suburb?
Can the genius of the hero fall
To the middling stature of the merely talented?

And nightly Icarus probes his wound
And daily in his workshop, curtains carefully drawn,
Constructs small wings and tries to fly
To the lighting fixture on the ceiling:
Fails every time and hates himself for trying.

He had thought himself a hero, had acted heroically,
And now dreamt of his fall, the tragic fall of the hero;
But now rides commuter trains,
Serves on various committees,
And wishes he had drowned.
 

There's Been a Death in the Opposite House​

by Emily Dickinson​


There's been a death in the opposite house
As lately as today.
I know it by the numb look
Such houses have alway.

The neighbours rustle in and out,
The doctor drives away.
A window opens like a pod,
Abrupt, mechanically;

Somebody flings a mattress out, -
The children hurry by;
They wonder if It died on that, -
I used to when a boy.

The minister goes stiffly in
As if the house were his,
And he owned all the mourners now,
And little boys besides;

And then the milliner, and the man
Of the appalling trade,
To take the measure of the house.
There'll be that dark parade

Of tassels and of coaches soon;
It's easy as a sign, -
The intuition of the news
In just a country town.
 

BILLY GREEN IS DEAD - Gil Scott Heron​


'The economy's in an uproar,
the whole damn country's in the red,
taxi fares is goin' up . What?

You say Billy Green is dead?'

'The government can't decide on busin'
Or at least that's what they said.
Yeah, I heard when you tol' me,
You said Billy Green is dead.'

'But let me tell you 'bout these hotpants
that this big-legged sista wore
when I partied with the frat boys.
You say Billy took an overdose?'

'Well now, junkies will be junkies,
But did you see Gunsmoke las' night?
Man they had themselves a shootout
an' folks wuz dyin' left and right!
At the end when Matt was cornered
I had damn near give up hope.

Why you keep on interruptin' me?

You say my son is takin' dope?
Call a lawyer! Call a doctor!
What you mean I shouldn't scream?
My only son is on narcotics,
should I stand here like I'm pleased?'

Is that familiar anybody?

Check out what's inside your head,
because it never seems to matter
when it's Billy Green who's dead.
 
Who But The Lord
by Langston Hughes

I looked and I saw
That man they call the Law.
He was coming
Down the street at me!
I had visions in my head
Of being laid out cold and dead,
Or else murdered
By the third degree.

I said, O, Lord, If you can,
Save me from that man!
Don’t let him make a pulp out of me!
But the Lord he was not quick.
The Law raised up his stick
And beat the living hell
Out of me!

Now I do not understand
Why God don’t protect a man
From police brutality.
Being poor and black,
I’ve no weapon to strike back
So who but the Lord
Can protect me?

We’ll see.
 

The Genius Of The Crowd Poem by Charles Bukowski​


there is enough treachery, hatred violence absurdity in the average
human being to supply any given army on any given day

and the best at murder are those who preach against it
and the best at hate are those who preach love
and the best at war finally are those who preach peace

those who preach god, need god
those who preach peace do not have peace
those who preach peace do not have love

beware the preachers
beware the knowers
beware those who are always reading books
beware those who either detest poverty
or are proud of it
beware those quick to praise
for they need praise in return
beware those who are quick to censor
they are afraid of what they do not know
beware those who seek constant crowds for
they are nothing alone
beware the average man the average woman
beware their love, their love is average
seeks average

but there is genius in their hatred
there is enough genius in their hatred to kill you
to kill anybody
not wanting solitude
not understanding solitude
they will attempt to destroy anything
that differs from their own
not being able to create art
they will not understand art
they will consider their failure as creators
only as a failure of the world
not being able to love fully
they will believe your love incomplete
and then they will hate you
and their hatred will be perfect

like a shining diamond
like a knife
like a mountain
like a tiger
like hemlock

their finest art
 
Last edited:
Just some poems that have been mulling in my head over the last couple of days. Not the happiest, or most optimistic, but these are not happy/optimistic times.
 
Enough, by Gil Scott Heron, with a slight update and some edits of lines that don't belong on this board

It was not enough that we were bought en brought to this home of the slaves
Locked in the bowels of a floating shit-house
Watching those we loved eaten away by plague and insanity
Flesh falling like strips of bark from a termite-infested tree
Bones rotting, turning first to brittle ivory, then to resin
That was not enough

It was not enough that we were chained by leg-irons
Black on black in black with a piss stained wall
Forced to heed nature's call
Through and inside the tattered of rags that stringed our privates
And evidently, years of slavery did not appease your need to be superior to something
Like a crazed lion hung up on being the king of his corner of the cage
Backs bend under the weight of being everything and having nothing
Minds too, like boomerangs curving back into themselves
Kicked and carved by the face-straining smiles that saved my life
That was not enough
Somehow I cannot believe that it will be enough
For me to melt with you and integrate, without the thoughts of rape and murder
I cannot conceive of on peace on earth until I have given you a piece of lead or pipe
To end your worthless, motherfucking existence

[edited]

Your ancestors raped my foremothers and I will not forget
I will not forget at Yale or Harvard or Princeton or in Hell, because you are on my mind
I see you every time my woman walks down the street with her ass on her shoulders
I see you every time I look in the mirror
And think of the times I used to pat myself for not being too black after all
I think of you morning, noon and night
And I wonder just exactly what in hell is enough

And to top it all off, you ain't through yet
Over 50 you have killed in Mississippi since 1963
That doesn't even begin to begin all of those you have maimed, hit and run over, blinded, poisoned, starved or castrated
Or the women shot in their cars or their homes
Or innocent men sent to be tortured in an El Salvador hell hole

I hope you do not think that a vote for Barack Obama took you off my shit list
Because in the street there will be no Democrats, Republicans, Liberals, Conservatives, Moderates or any of the rest of that shit you have used
To make me forget to hate
There ain't no enough, there ain't no surrender
There is only plot and plan, move and groove, kill
There is no promised land, there is only the promise
The promise is my vow that until we have been nerve-gassed, shot down and murdered or done some of the same ourselves
Look over your shoulder motherfucker, I am coming
 

The day a poet is murdered by ICE​

is a school day like every other
in the first week of the year.
Time isn’t real but still
it’s January, and scientists say
we’re gaining about sixty seconds
of sunlight even as the sun sets.
I wake up and feel closer to death
than the day before. I am a mother,
so I wait for my daughter at the bottom
of the stairs and I hold her hand
when crossing the street and when
we stop at the corner I run my fingers
over her ponytail like it’s my own hair.
She says there’s a cloud in the sky
that looks like a heart but I can’t see
what she sees. I am a mother
so when she is hungry I feed her
and when she asks me how to spell wolves
I explain how some nouns transform
in the plural. Man is men and tooth is teeth
and person who is murdered becomes people.

In memory of Renee Nicole Good, z’l, a poet and a mother

Hannah Levy
 
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