Get Your Premium Membership

Telegram

 I SAW a telegram handed a two hundred pound man at a desk.
And the little scrap of paper charged the air like a set of crystals in a chemist’s tube to a whispering pinch of salt.
Cross my heart, the two hundred pound man had just cracked a joke about a new hat he got his wife, when the messenger boy slipped in and asked him to sign.
He gave the boy a nickel, tore the envelope and read.
Then he yelled “Good God,” jumped for his hat and raincoat, ran for the elevator and took a taxi to a railroad depot.
As I say, it was like a set of crystals in a chemist’s tube and a whispering pinch of salt.
I wonder what Diogenes who lived in a tub in the sun would have commented on the affair.
I know a shoemaker who works in a cellar slamming half-soles onto shoes, and when I told him, he said: “I pay my bills, I love my wife, and I am not afraid of anybody.

Poem by Carl Sandburg
Biography | Poems | Best Poems | Short Poems | Quotes | Email Poem - TelegramEmail Poem | Create an image from this poem

Poems are below...



More Poems by Carl Sandburg

Comments, Analysis, and Meaning on Telegram

Provide your analysis, explanation, meaning, interpretation, and comments on the poem Telegram here.

Commenting turned off, sorry.


Book: Reflection on the Important Things