Long Sandburg Poems

Eric Mottram on the American literary and cultural scene during 1965-66 while he was the recipient of the American Learned Societies’ award for a year. (begun in the last post and to be continued)

January 2,...

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It is like a drunk
or addict reaching that 'so called' stopping off point. That point
where one can't imagine life with or without the fix. Writing is like that.
Obsessive, progressive, addictive. A fix. Scribes need it...

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As a poet who likes to make things rhyme,
It has been a mystery to me why some prefer "Free Verse".
I rarely, if ever at all, understand how to write in that style.
Perhaps, that is why...

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They wouldn’t let me be White 
Oh I wanted to be 
Dreams of that Pulitzer haunted me 

They said, Sir, you have ten minutes to play
I gave them Milton, Poe and Millay 
I stood before...

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MINI VACATION

sweetness of four days
off in a row

to pitter, to dream, to combat
the clutter and dust, even the walls

how have i missed that? to dream
on paper with dot to dots, morse

code – oh, help-me-not! ...

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I have read a few authors within my days
some, of which, you may all know.
I hope to share them with you all
to help your knowledge grow.

Many an author has crossed my path
like Elliott, Bronte and...

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Poetry is the journal of the sea animal living on land, wanting to fly in the air. Poetry is a search for syllables to shoot at the barriers of the unknown and the unknowable. Poetry...

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I love so much the book company, 
More than anything in the world,
More than cats or butterflies,  
Looking at the books in my room, soothe me,
Henry James amazes me, what intelligence,
Yachar Kemal makes me...

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Looking for Carl Sandburg

almost one hundred years
after your Chicago apologetic
i am searching for century-old signs of the city
rushing to see them in a few too-short days
when it is bundled in 
cloud and rain and mist...

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That as a youth I spoke with him about
his love of poetic word.
Free verse was ultimately everything
written that he preferred.
From rustic farming to city steel mills
and laying of train rail;
sea shores and boat docks to...

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The Beach Boys sang about the sloop, John B.
They weren’t the first, nor would they be the last.
John Bethel built this sixteen-foot-long boat
in sixteen forty-seven, in his yard.

A sloop had only five men on its...

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Carl Sandburg

Life is a garden; What’s not to like?
You can’t grow an onion without proper soil.
You peel back the rocky top and remove it,
You haul off the dirt next; there’s no lack of toil.

One layer...

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Poetry is a mystic, sensuous mathematics of fire
smokestacks, waffles, pansies, people,
and purple sunsets.

                      ...

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Sandburg saw you
more than a century ago
in prairie-town Galesburg -
an old lady on the porch - 
unbothered by the whooping cries
of ball-playing boys.

Strangely, you had become a missing piece
in the jigsaw puzzle of my life
and...

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Moving On


Days darkened, shadows followed memories I could not escape.
Streets I knew well, seemed to shift under the weight of my heart.
Songs, that once lifted me on Angels Wings, now bury my soul
with regret.
By chance,...

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“Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance.” – Carl Sandburg.

Glowing like the roused firefly glows,
Stirring souls, poetry just knows,
Love, fire, boldest winds of desire,
Rains blessing, song without a choir.

Words pouring out soft, gentle...

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Where is the great engine of life?
  How many mechanics does it take 
  to keep it running smooth as a baby's bottom?
All those wheels and sockets and spindles ---
  must need...

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Beat the drums; aye, beat the drums!
Make them go stark raving mad—
These likes of Emperor Jones. 1

The criminals' courts play house.
Adzes don't cut their own tails. 2
Where are Clinton, Bush, and Trump? 3

'We' are the...

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Carl Sandburg

Precious, this life is, so swift and so fleeting,
wrapped in enigma, like an onion you peel.

It offers itself to the one who is willing
to weather the layers, at a time unrevealed.

And sometimes your laughing...

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