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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Carl Sandburg
Carl Sandburg
Carl Sandburg was born in Galesburg, Illinois, on January 6, 1878. His parents,...
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FURTHER READING
Poems about Stealing
After
by T. R. Hummer
Against Pleasure
by Robin Becker
America
by Claude McKay
Learning to Read
by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
Museum Guard
by David Hernandez
Some People
by Wislawa Szymborska
Stealing The Scream
by Monica Youn
The Man Whose Voice Has Been Taken From His Throat
by Naomi Shihab Nye
The Not-Yet Child
by Joshua Weiner
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Cahoots

 
by Carl Sandburg

Play it across the table.
What if we steal this city blind?
If they want any thing let 'em nail it down.

Harness bulls, dicks, front office men,
And the high goats up on the bench,
Ain't they all in cahoots?
Ain't it fifty-fifty all down the line,
Petemen, dips, boosters, stick-ups and guns—
        what's to hinder?

        Go fifty-fifty.
If they nail you call in a mouthpiece.
Fix it, you gazump, you slant-head, fix it.
        Feed 'em. . . .

Nothin' ever sticks to my fingers, nah, nah,
        nothin' like that,
But there ain't no law we got to wear mittens—
        huh—is there?
Mittens, that's a good one—mittens!
There oughta be a law everybody wear mittens.







This poem appeared in Poem-A-Day on March 24, 2013. Browse the Poem-A-Day archive.
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