11. Pick Offs. III. Broken-Face Gargoyles. Sandburg, Carl. 1920. Smoke and Steel

Carl Sandburg (1878–1967). Smoke and Steel. 1922.

III. Broken-Face Gargoyles

11. Pick Offs

THE TELESCOPE picks off star dust
on the clean steel sky and sends it to me.

The telephone picks off my voice and
sends it cross country a thousand miles.

The eyes in my head pick off pages of	5
Napoleon memoirs … a rag handler,
a head of dreams walks in a sheet of
mist … the palace panels shut in nobodies
drinking nothings out of silver
helmets … in the end we all come to a	10
rock island and the hold of the sea-walls.