|
Carl Sandburg
1878-1967"Aprons of Silence"
(1920)
- Many things I might have said today.
- And I kept my mouth shut.
- So many times I was asked
- To come and say the same things
- Everybody was saying, no end
- To the yes-yes, yes-yes,
- me-too, me-too.
- The aprons of silence covered me.
- A wire and hatch held my tongue.
- I spit nails into an abyss and listened.
- I shut off the gable of Jones, Johnson, Smith,
- All whose names take pages in the city directory.
- I fixed up a padded cell and lugged it around.
- I locked myself in and nobody knew it.
- Only the keeper and the kept in the hoosegow
- Knew it – on the streets, in the post office,
- On the cars, into the railroad station
- Where the caller was calling, "All a-board,
- All a-board for ... Blaa-blaa ... Blaa-blaa,
- Blaa-blaa ... and all points northwest ... all a-board."
- Here I took along my own hoosegow
- And did business with my own thoughts.
- Do you see? It must be the aprons of silence.
|