CHICAGO
by: Carl Sandburg (1878-1967)
- OG 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 the Hog Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of
Wheat,
- Player with Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.
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POEMS BY CARL SANDBURG |
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