hearts nearly always
to know silence perfectly
is to know music
From Carl Sandburg and his poem, To Know Silence Perfectly.
There is a music for lonely hearts nearly always
If the music dies down there is a silence
Almost the same as the movement of music
To know silence perfectly is to know music
sea rocks apounding
in high wind, southeast sleet, these
are heard so to speak
From the poem, So to Speak by Carl Sandburg.
Dreams, graves, pools, growing
flowers, cornfields – these are
silent, so to speak
Northwest blizzards, sea rocks
apounding in high wind, southeast
sleet after a thaw – these are heard,
so to speak
Lord, give me this day
my opinion and forgive
the one yesterday
Adapted from the line:
For my part,” an editorial writer ended his silence, “I begin each bright morning with praying: Lord, give me this day my daily opinion and forgive me the one I had yesterday.”
As it appeared in the poem, “The People, Yes!” by Carl Sandburg.
According to Wikipedia, The People, Yes is a book-length poem written by Carl Sandburg and published in 1936. The 300 page work is thoroughly interspersed with references to American culture, phrases, and stories (such as the legend of Paul Bunyan). Published at the height of the Great Depression, the work lauds the perseverance of the American people in notably plain-spoken language. It was written over an eight-year period. It is Sandburg’s last major book of poetry.
As it says, The People, Yes, lauds the perseverance of the American people in notably plain-spoken language.
It is also one of the great collections of one-liners in my personal experience until Garrison Keillor published his Pretty Good Joke book.
Mr. Sandburg includes:
“Man,” spoke up an anthropologist, “is a two-legged animal with¬ out feathers, the only one who cooks his food, uses an alpha¬ bet, carries firearms, drinks when he is not thirsty, and practices love with an eye on birth control.”
“Shakespeare is the greatest writer of them all, a dead Englishman and you have to read him in high school or you don’t pass.
“I want money,” said the editorial writer who knew where he got it, “in order to buy the time to get the things that money will not buy.”
I close with this blessing.
May you live to eat the hen that scratches over your grave.
no matter how thick
or how thin you slice it, it
is still baloney
On August 23, 1936, a book review in the New York Times was headlined, “Carl Sandburg Writes in the True Accent of the People; His New Poem Displays and Develops the Popular Sayings That Americans Live By THE PEOPLE, YES.”
According to Wikipedia, The People, Yes is a book-length poem written by Carl Sandburg and published in 1936. The 300 page work is thoroughly interspersed with references to American culture, phrases, and stories (such as the legend of Paul Bunyan). Published at the height of the Great Depression, the work lauds the perseverance of the American people in notably plain-spoken language. It was written over an eight-year period. It is Sandburg’s last major book of poetry.
Written in 1936.
Containing the sayings that Americans live by.
One of those lines is “No matter how thick or how thin you slice it, it’s still baloney.”
Published almost 100 years ago.
In the words of that old Virginia Slims cigarette commercial, “We’ve come a long way, baby!”
I watch the news.
I read the papers.
I look at the magazines.
All I can think is, No matter how thick or how thin you slice it, it’s still baloney.
Who knew you could say such a fine line of words and be quoting Carl Sandburg.
I can go down to the beach and stand with my feet in the Atlantic Ocean waves and face Algeria across the water.
Looking out, the entire country is behind me.
Turning around and I face the entire country all the way to the Pacific Ocean.
I want scream, “WAKE UP CANTCHA!!! GEE WHIZ”
The next line in the poem is, “I would if I could and I could if I would but if I couldn’t how could I, could you?”
I guess I will just turn away and look out.
At least I can see the sun rise.
If I said the poem, The People, Yes, was a bit nonsensical, it would only serve to make it more fit for reading today.
it is something to
face the sun know you are free
one day of life so
Based on the poem Clean Hands by Carl Sandburg in Smoke and Steel, 1922.
IT is something to face the sun and know you are free.
To hold your head in the shafts of daylight slanting the earth
And know your heart has kept a promise and the blood runs clean:
It is something.
To go one day of your life among all men with clean hands,
Clean for the day book today and the record of the after days,
Held at your side proud, satisfied to the last, and ready,
So to have clean hands:
God, it is something,
One day of life so
And a memory fastened till the stars sputter out
And a love washed as white linen in the noon drying.
Yes, go find the men of clean hands one day and see the life, the memory, the love they have, to stay longer than the plunging sea wets the shores or the fires heave under the crust of the earth.
O yes, clean hands is the chant and only one man knows its sob and its undersong and he dies clenching the secret more to him than any woman or chum.
And O the great brave men, the silent little brave men, proud of their hands – clutching the knuckles of their fingers into fists ready for death and the dark, ready for life and the fight, the pay and the memories – O the men proud of their hands.
