DRUM on your drums, batter on your banjoes, sob on the long cool winding saxophones. Go to it, O jazzmen.
Sling your knuckles on the bottoms of the happy tin pans, let your trombones ooze, and go hushahusha-hush with the slippery sand-paper.
Moan like an autumn wind high in the lonesome tree-tops, moan soft like you wanted somebody terrible, cry like a racing car slipping away from a motorcycle cop, bang-bang! you jazzmen, bang altogether drums, traps, banjoes, horns, tin cans-make two people fight on the top of a stairway and scratch each other’s eyes in a clinch tumbling down the stairs.
Can the rough stuff . now a Mississippi steamboat pushes up the night river with a hoo-hoo-hoo-oo . and the green lanterns calling to the high soft stars . a red moon rides on the humps of the low river hills . go to it, O jazzmen.
(Carl Sandburg)
More Poetry from Carl Sandburg:
Carl Sandburg Poems based on Topics: Night, Cry, Autumn, Happiness, Motorcycles- And This Will Be All.... (Carl Sandburg Poems)
- And So To-Day (Carl Sandburg Poems)
- To A Contemporary (Carl Sandburg Poems)
- A Father To His Son (Carl Sandburg Poems)
- Arithmetic (Carl Sandburg Poems)
- California City Landscape (Carl Sandburg Poems)
Readers Who Like This Poem Also Like:
Based on Topics: Night Poems, Cry Poems, Happiness Poems, Autumn Poems, Motorcycles PoemsBased on Keywords: pushes, knuckles, pans, steamboat, bottoms, mississippi, humps, clinch, trombones, saxophones, banjoes