“City of Big Shoulders”
from creativity timothy k hamiltons photostream on Flickr.com
January 10, 2009:
By Carl Sandburg
Hog 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 painted women
under the gas lamps luring the farm boys.
And they tell me you are crooked
and I answer: Yes, it is true.
I have seen the gunman kill
and go free to kill again.
And they tell me you are brutal
and my reply is:
On the faces of women and children
I have seen the marks of wanton hunger.
And having answered
so I turn once more to those
who sneer at this my city,
and I give them back the sneer and say to them:
Come and show me another city
with lifted head singing so proud to be
alive and coarse and strong and cunning.
Flinging magnetic curses
amid the toil of piling job on job,
here is a tall bold slugger
set vivid against the little soft cities.
Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action,
cunning as a savage
pitted against the wilderness,
bareheaded,
shoveling,
wrecking,
planning,
building,
breaking,
rebuilding.
Under the smoke,
dust all over his mouth,
laughing with white teeth,
under the terrible burden of destiny
laughing as a young man laughs
Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs
who has never lost a battle,
bragging and laughing
that under his wrist is the pulse.
and under his ribs the heart of the people.
Laughing!
Laughing the stormy, husky,
brawling laughter of Youth,
half-naked, sweating,
proud to be Hog Butcher,
Tool Maker,
Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads
and Freight Handler to the Nation.
