7.21.2026 – was swallowed one time

was swallowed one time
deep in the dark and came out
alive after all

If I should pass the tomb of Jonah
I would stop there and sit for a while;
Because I was swallowed one time deep in the dark
And came out alive after all.

If I pass the burial spot of Nero
I shall say to the wind, “Well, well!” —
I who have fiddled in a world on fire,
I who have done so many stunts not worth doing.

I am looking for the grave of Sinbad too.
I want to shake his ghost-hand and say,
“Neither of us died very early, did we?”

And the last sleeping-place of Nebuchadnezzar —
When I arrive there I shall tell the wind:
“You ate grass; I have eaten crow —
Who is better off now or next year?”

Jack Cade, John Brown, Jesse James,
There too I could sit down and stop for a while.
I think I could tell their headstones:
“God, let me remember all good losers.”

I could ask people to throw ashes on their heads
In the name of that sergeant at Belleau Woods,
Walking into the drumfires, calling his men,
“Come on, you … Do you want to live forever?”

Losers by Carl Sandberg as published in Smoke and Steel in The Complete Poems of Carl Sandburg (Harcourt, Brace: New York, 1970).

I who have done so many stunts not worth doing.

“Come on, you … Do you want to live forever?”

And came out alive after all.