(no subject)
I really meant to post one poem a day this month, but events conspired against me. So here's the last one, for the last day of the month -- but that doesn't mean that you all shouldn't keep reading poetry.
Threes
Carl Sandburg (1878-1967)
I was a boy when I heard three red words
a thousand Frenchman died in the streets
for: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. I asked
why men die for words.
I was older; men with mustaches, sideburns,
lilacs, told me the high golden words are:
Mother, Home, and Heaven -- other older men with
face decorations said: God, Duty, Immortality
-- they sang these threes slow from deep lungs.
Years ticked off their say-so on the great clocks
of doom and damnation, soup and nuts: meteors flashed
their say-so: and out of great Russia came three
dusky syllables workmen took guns and went out to die
for: Bread, Peace, Land.
And I met a marine of the U.S.A., a leatherneck with
a girl on his knee for a memory in ports circling the
earth and he said: Tell me how to say three things
and I always get by -- gimme a plate of ham and eggs --
how much? -- and -- do you love me, kid?
Threes
Carl Sandburg (1878-1967)
I was a boy when I heard three red words
a thousand Frenchman died in the streets
for: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. I asked
why men die for words.
I was older; men with mustaches, sideburns,
lilacs, told me the high golden words are:
Mother, Home, and Heaven -- other older men with
face decorations said: God, Duty, Immortality
-- they sang these threes slow from deep lungs.
Years ticked off their say-so on the great clocks
of doom and damnation, soup and nuts: meteors flashed
their say-so: and out of great Russia came three
dusky syllables workmen took guns and went out to die
for: Bread, Peace, Land.
And I met a marine of the U.S.A., a leatherneck with
a girl on his knee for a memory in ports circling the
earth and he said: Tell me how to say three things
and I always get by -- gimme a plate of ham and eggs --
how much? -- and -- do you love me, kid?