| Carl Sandburg (1878–1967). Smoke and Steel. 1922. |
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| III. Broken-Face Gargoyles |
| 6. Jazz Fantasia |
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| DRUM on your drums, batter on your banjoes, sob on the long cool winding saxophones. Go to it, O jazzmen. | |
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| Sling your knuckles on the bottoms of the happy tin pans, let your trombones ooze, and go hushahusha-hush with the slippery sand-paper. | |
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| 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. | |
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| 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. | |
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