Cornhuskers. 1918.
#Americans
I DON’T blame the kettle drums-t… And the snare drums-I know what t… And the harring booming bass drums… The howling spears of the Northwe… The lullabies of the Southwest ge…
I HAVE ransacked the encyclopedi… And slid my fingers among topics a… Looking for you. And the answer comes slow. There seems to be no answer.
A SWIRL in the air where your h… You walked under this tree, spoke… I might almost stand here and beli…
STROLLING along By the teeming docks, I watch the ships put out. Black ships that heave and lunge And move like mastodons
THE WASHERWOMAN is a member… And over the tub of suds rubbing u… She sings that Jesus will wash he… And the red wrongs she has done G… Shall be white as driven snow.
Six years I worked in a knitting… And then I married Jerry, the ice… He weighed 240 pounds, and could h… Who weighed 105 pounds, outward ea… He came home drunk and lay on me w…
There was a woman tore off a red v… And slashed the white skin of her… And a crimson zigzag wrote a finge… There was a woman spoke six short… And quit a life that was old to he…
Singing to Paris for bread, singing to Gotham in a fizz at the pop of a bottle’s cork. “Won’t you come and play wiz me” she sang... and “I just can’t make my eyes behave.” “Higgeldy-Pig...
DESOLATE and lone All night long on the lake Where fog trails and mist creeps, The whistle of a boat Calls and cries unendingly,
ON the one hand the steel works. On the other hand the penitentiary… Sante Fé trains and Alton trains Between smokestacks on the west And gray walls on the east.
HOG Butcher for the World, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and the Nat… Stormy, husky, brawling, City of the Big Shoulders:
LET down your braids of hair, lad… Cross your legs and sit before the… And gaze long on lines under your… Life writes; men dance. And you know how men pay women.
SEVEN days all fog, all mist, an… I was a plaything, a rat’s neck in… Fog and fog and no stars, sun, moo… Then an afternoon in fjords, low-l… A night harbor, blue dusk mountain…
I DRANK musty ale at the Illino… the millionaire manufacturer of Gr… one night And his face had the shining light… he spoke of a beautiful daughter,…
SMASH down the cities. Knock the walls to pieces. Break the factories and cathedrals… and homes Into loose piles of stone and lumb…