Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

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

II. People Who Must

2. Alley Rats

THEY were calling certain styles of whiskers by the name of “lilacs.”

And another manner of beard assumed in their chatter a verbal guise

Of “mutton chops,” “galways,” “feather dusters.”

Metaphors such as these sprang from their lips while other street cries

Sprang from sparrows finding scattered oats among interstices of the curb.

Ah-hah these metaphors—and Ah-hah these boys—among the police they were known

As the Dirty Dozen and their names took the front pages of newspapers

And two of them croaked on the same day at a “necktie party” … if we employ the metaphors of their lips.