Fight
Red drips from my chin where I have been eating
Not all the blood, nowhere near all, is wiped off my mouth
Clots of red mess my
And the tiger, the buffalo, know how
Red drips from my chin where I have been eating
Not all the blood, nowhere near all, is wiped off my mouth
Clots of red mess my
And the tiger, the buffalo, know how
I am singing to
Soft as a man with a dead child speaks;
Hard as a man in handcuffs,
Held where he cannot move: Under the
HE single clenched fist lifted and ready, Or the open asking hand held out and waiting
Choose: For we meet by one or the other
Composition date is unknown - the above date represents the first publication date
The lyrical form of th...
Desolate and lone All night long on the lake Where fog trails and mist creeps,
The whistle of a boat Calls and cries unendingly,
Like some lost child In tears and trouble Hunting the harbor's breast And the harbor's eyes
HE Government—I heard about the Government and I went out to find it
I said I would look closely at it when I saw it
Then I saw a policeman dragging a drunken man to the callaboose
It was the Government in action
[They picked him up in the grass where he had lain two days in the rain with a piece of shrapnel in his lungs
]Come to me only with playthings now
I thought of killing myself because I am only a bricklayer and you a woman who loves the man who runs a drug store
I don't care like I used to;
I lay bricks straighter than I used to and I sing slower handling the trowel afternoons
...
I asked the professors who teach the meaning of life to tell me what is happiness
And I went to famous executives who boss the work of thousands of men
They all shook their heads and gave me a smile as though I was trying to fool with
Your western heads here cast on money,
You are the two that fade away together, Partners in the mist
Lunging buffalo shoulder, Lean Indian face,
We who come after where you are
OG Butcher for the World, Tool Maker,
Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler; Stormy, husky, brawling, City of the Big Shoulders:
They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I have seen your pain...
What is the name you called me
— And why did you go so soon
The crows lift their caws on the wind,
And the wind changed and was lonely
I AM the people — the mob—the crowd—the mass
Do you know that all the great work of the world is done through me
I am the workingman, the inventor, the maker of the world's food and clothes
I am the audience that witnesses history