Quotes by Poets - Page 221

Walk the midway and hear the carnival barker.Come see the freak named after his deceased father.Come see the prince who wants to abdicate his throne.Come see the son whose name is carved on a gravestone.
Sherman Alexie
If, of all words of tongue and pen,The saddest are, 'It might have been,'More sad are these we daily see:'It is, but hadn't ought to be.
Bret Harte
from time to time, i think of him watching mefrom over the top of his glasses, or eating candyfrom a jar. i remember thanking him each timethe session was done. but mostly what i seeis a human hand reaching down to lifta pebble from my tongue
Tracy K. Smith
The moon twangs its silver strings;The river swoons into town;The wind beds down in the pines,Covers itself with stars.
George Elliott Clarke
In school, I hated poetry - those skinny,Malnourished poems that professors love;The bad grammar and dirty words that catchIn the mouth like fishhooks, tear holes in speech.Pablo, your words are rain I run through,Grass I sleep in.
George Elliott Clarke
I think that I shall never see a poem lovely as a tree.
Joyce Kilmer
I plan to be a sinner tonight. Could've been something else, but looked way too good in my red dress to be anything Christian.
Alysia Harris
It takes an aeon to shift position, get comfortable, let alonecreate a wave in this fishbowl full of glue.- from the poem 'Critical Mass
Toby Fitch
ENTER THIS DESERTED HOUSEBut please walk softly as you do.Frogs dwell here and crickets too.Ain't no ceiling, only blueJays dwell here and sunbeams too.Floors are flowers - take a few.Ferns grow here and daisies too.Whoosh, swoosh - too-whit, too-woo,Bats dwell here and hoot owls too.Ha-ha-ha,hee-hee,hoo-hoooo,Gnomes dwell here and goblins too.And my child, I thought you knewI dwell here...and so do you.
Shel Silverstein
POOR ANGUSOh what do you do, poor Angus,When hunger makes you cry?"I fix myself an omelet, sir,Of fluffy clouds and sky."Oh what do you wear, poor Angus,When winds blow down the hills?"I sew myself a warm cloak, sir,Of hope and daffodils."Oh who do you love, poor Angus,When Catherine's left the moor?"Ah, then, sir, then's the only timeI feel I'm really poor.
Shel Silverstein
Objects and ObjectivesTo contemplate LEGO. Many colours. Many shapes. Many inventive and useful shapes. Plastic. A versatile and practical substance. Symbolic of the resourcefulness of man. Oil taken from the depths of the very earth. Distillation of said raw material. Chemical processes. Pollution. Creating a product providing hours of constructive play. For children all over the world. Teaching our young. Through enjoyment. Preparing them for further resourcefulness. The progress of our kind.A book. Many books. Proud liners of walls. Fingered. Taken out with great care. Held open. Gazed upon / into with something like awe. A medium for the recording of and communication of knowledge. From the many to the many. Down the ages. And of art. And of love. But do you hear the trees outside whispering? Do their voices haunt you? No wonder. They are calling for their brothers. Pulped. Pressed. Coated. Printed. Bound. And for their other brothers which made the shelves to hold them. And for the roof over them as well.From the very beginning - everything at cost. A cave man, to get food, had to deal with the killing. And the bones from one death proved very useful for implementing the death of another.
Jay Woodman
YENWhat happens if you take a cup? Put it to your lips. A cup of desire. Of dazzling colour. Of intoxicating aroma. You can't resist. Drink. And in the bottom of the cup. There is a fish. And the fish says "You have uncovered me! Now I am condemned. To die."What happens if you find a box? 35mm by 35mm exactly. And are curious. You open it quickly. Of course. And inside there is an eye. And the eye seems to think that the box is its exclusive property. And fixes you with a terrifying glare.What happens if you catch a soft sound? A voice whispering in the air. Above the tree tops. And you can't quite hear what it is saying. But you have to listen. So you float up. Then you find you can't come down again. When the conversation is finished.
Jay Woodman
Time is not ours and we would not own it. It does not wound us to say so.from the prose poem INNOCENCE
Jay Woodman
We can't go back, thoughwe're apt to waver even as our wheels spin on.
Brook Emery
Don't ask me any questions. I've seen how things that seek their way find their void instead.
Federico García Lorca
Until we say the truth, there can be no tenderness.As long as there is desire, we will not be safe
Tony Hoagland
My second thoughts condemnAnd wonder how I dareTo look you in the eye.What right have I to swearEven at one a.m.To love you till I die?Earth meets too many crimesFor fibs to interest her;If I can give my word,Forgiveness can recurAny number of timesIn Time. Which is absurd.Tempus fugit. Quite.So finish up your drink.All flesh is grass. It is. But who on earth can thinkWith heavy heart or lightOf what will come of this?
W.H. Auden
We don't know how to say goodbye,We wander on, shoulder to shoulderAlready the sun is going downYou're moody, and I am your shadow.Let's step inside a church, hear prayers, masses for the deadWhy are we so different from the rest?Outside in the graveyard we sit on a frozen branch.That stick in your hand is tracingMansions in the snow in which we will always be together.
Anna Akhmatova
Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.Shovel them under and let me work-- I am the grass; I cover all.And pile them high at GettysburgAnd pile them high at Ypres and Verdun.Shovel them under and let me work.Two years, ten years, and the passengers ask the conductor: What place is this? Where are we now? I am the grass. Let me work.
Carl Sandburg
I'm only leaving you for a handful of days, but it feels as though I'll be gone forever—- the way the door closes behind me with such solidity, the way my suitcase carries everything I'd need for an eternity of traveling light. I've left my hotel number on your desk, instructions about the dog and heating dinner. But like the weather front they warn is on its way with its switchblades of wind and ice, our lives have minds of their own.
Linda Pastan
Very Like a WhaleOne thing that literature would be greatly the better forWould be a more restricted employment by authors of simile and metaphor.Authors of all races, be they Greeks, Romans, Teutons or Celts,Can'ts seem just to say that anything is the thing it is but haveto go out of their way to say that it is like something else.What foes it mean when we are toldThat the Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold?In the first place, George Gordon Byron had had enough experienceTo know that it probably wasn't just one Assyrian, it was a lotof Assyrians.However, as too many arguments are apt to induce apoplexy and thus hinder longevity,We'll let it pass as one Assyrian for the sake of brevity.Now then, this particular Assyrian, the one whose cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold,Just what does the poet mean when he says he came down like a wolfon the fold?In heaven and earth more than is dreamed of in our philosophy thereare a great many things,But i don't imagine that among then there is a wolf with purpleand gold cohorts or purple and gold anythings.No, no, Lord Byron, before I'll believe that this Assyrian was actually like a wolf I must have some kind of proof;Did he run on all fours and did he have a hairy tail and a big redmouth and big white teeth and did he say Woof woof?Frankly I think it very unlikely, and all you were entitled to say,at the very most,Was that the Assyrian cohorts came down like a lot of Assyrian cohorts about to destroy the Hebrew host.But that wasn't fancy enough for Lord Byron, oh dear me no, he hadto invent a lot of figures of speech and then interpolatethem,With the result that whenever you mention Old Testament soldiersto people they say Oh yes, they're the ones that a lotof wolves dressed up in gold and purple ate them.That's the kind of thing that's being done all the time by poets,from Homer to Tennyson;They're always comparing ladies to lilies and veal to venison,And they always say things like that the snow is a white blanketafter a winter storm.Oh it is, is it, all right then, you sleep under a six-inch blanketof snow and I'll sleep under a half-inch blanket of unpoeticalblanket material and we'll see which one keeps warm,And after that maybe you'll begin to comprehend dimly,What I mean by too much metaphor and simile.
Ogden Nash
I’m alone with the ghost of the swamp, somewhere near the weeping willows.
Steven Herrick
wesat theresmokingcigarettesat5in the morning.
Charles Bukowski
Life remains unchangedtill a leap of faithruns towards heaven
Santosh Kalwar
(...) It,s hard not to be able. There, look there!/ I cannot get the movement nor the light;/Sometimes it almost makes a man despair/To try and try and never get it right./Oh, if I could -oh, if I only might,/I wouldn,t mind what hells I,d have to pass,/Not if the whole world called me fool and ass."Dauber (A poem). John Masefield. 1916. London William Heinemann
John Masefield
And in a mad tranceStrike with our spirit's knifeInvulnerable nothingsWe decayLike corpses in a charnelFear & GriefConvulse is & consume usDay by dayAnd cold hopes swarmLike worms withinOur living clay
Percy Bysshe Shelley
All I know, all I can comprehend of the mathematics of a life, are the times your hand is inside my hand, and the times it is not.
Tyler Knott Gregson
I found the best thingI could dowas just to type awayat my own workand let the dyingdieas they always have.
Charles Bukowski
one doesn't even think ofthe liverand if the liverdoesn't think ofus, that'sfine.
Charles Bukowski
when I drive the freeways I see the soul of humanity ofmy city and it's ugly, ugly, ugly: the living have choked theheartaway.
Charles Bukowski
I didn't know who tobelievebutone thing I doknow: when a man islivingmany claim relationshipsthat are hardlysoand after he dies, well,then it's everybody'sparty.
Charles Bukowski
If we meet and I say, "Hi,"That's a salutation.If you ask me how I feel,That's a consideration.If we stop and talk awhile,That's a conversation.If we understand each other,That's communication.If we argue, scream and fight,That's an altercation.If later we apologize,That's a reconciliation.If we help each other home,That's cooperation.And all these ations added upMake civilization.(And if I say this is a wonderful poem, Is that exaggeration?)
Shel Silverstein
Standing is stupid, Crawling's a curse, Skipping is silly,Walking is worse.Hopping is hopeless,Jumping's a chore,Sitting is senseless, Leaning's a bore.Running's ridiculous,Jogging's insane-Guess I'll go upstairs andLie down again.
Shel Silverstein
I'd rather play tennis than go to the dentist. I'd rather play soccer than go to the doctor.I'd rather play Hurk than go to work.Hurk? Hurk? What's Hurk?I don't know, but it must be better than work.
Shel Silverstein
We can't find the cat,We don't know where she's at,Oh, where did she go?Does anyone know?Let's ask this walking hat.
Shel Silverstein
i am really colored & really sad sometimes & you hurt memore than i ever danced outta/ i am ready to die like a lily in thedesert/ & i cdnt let you in on it cuz i didnt know/ hereis what i have/ poems/ big thighs/ lil tits/ &so much love/ will you take it from me this one time/ please this is for you
Ntozake Shange
Caxtons are mechanical birds with many wings and some are treasured for their markings-- they cause the eyes to melt or the body to shriek without pain. I have never seen one fly, but sometimes they perch on the hand. Mist is when the sky is tired of flight and rests its soft machine on the ground: then the world is dim and bookish like engravings under tissue paper. Rain is when the earth is television. It has the properites of making colours darker. Model T is a room with the lock inside -- a key is turned to free the world for movement, so quick there is a film to watch for anything missed. But time is tied to the wrist or kept in a box, ticking with impatience. In homes, a haunted apparatus sleeps, that snores when you pick it up. If the ghost cries, they carry it to their lips and soothe it to sleep with sounds. And yet, they wake it up deliberately, by tickling with a finger. Only the young are allowed to suffer openly. Adults go to a punishment room with water but nothing to eat. They lock the door and suffer the noises alone. No one is exempt and everyone's pain has a different smell. At night, when all the colours die, they hide in pairs and read about themselves -- in colour, with their eyelids shut.
Craig Raine
Mine, said the stone,mine is the hour.I crush the scissors,such is my power.Stronger than wishes,my power, alone.Mine, said the paper,mine are the wordsthat smother the stonewith imagined birds,reams of them, flownfrom the mind of the shaper.Mine, said the scissors,mine all the knivesgashing through paper’sethereal lives;nothing’s so properas tattering wishes.As stone crushes scissors,as paper snuffs stoneand scissors cut paper,all end alone.So heap up your paperand scissor your wishesand uproot the stonefrom the top of the hill.They all end aloneas you will, you will.
David Mason
Four simple chambers.A thousand complicated doors.One of them is yours.
Jill Alexander Essbaum
We wear the mask that grins and lies, It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,— This debt we pay to human guile; With torn and bleeding hearts we smile, And mouth with myriad subtleties. Why should the world be over-wise, In counting all our tears and sighs? Nay, let them only see us, while We wear the mask. We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries To thee from tortured souls arise. We sing, but oh the clay is vile Beneath our feet, and long the mile; But let the world dream otherwise, We wear the mask!
Paul Laurence Dunbar
.... Blesstheir believing happiness will make them happy;that the ocean is magical, a kingdomwhere we go to be human, and grateful.
Philip Schultz
No sun—no moon! No morn—no noon—No dawn— No sky—no earthly view— No distance looking blue—No road—no street—no "t'other side the way"— No end to any Row— No indications where the Crescents go— No top to any steeple—No recognitions of familiar people— No courtesies for showing 'em— No knowing 'em!No traveling at all—no locomotion,No inkling of the way—no notion— "No go"—by land or ocean— No mail—no post— No news from any foreign coast—No park—no ring—no afternoon gentility— No company—no nobility—No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease, No comfortable feel in any member—No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds, November!
Thomas Hood
Quote from "The Whole World Is Gone" ".... It's sensual, though, too, and interestingly mental. What I do alone, loving him in my mind. Trying not to let imagination win over reality. Hurtling through the night passions so spent become facts one observes. Not tempered, just momentarily out of view by the body that perceives them. Turning that into my prayer: to be deprived.
Jennifer Grotz
and love is a word usedtoo much andmuchtoo soon.
Charles Bukowski
The dead do not needaspirin orsorrow,I suppose.but they might needrain.not shoesbut a place towalk.not cigarettes,they tell us,but a place to burn.or we're told:space and a place to flymight be thesame.the dead don't need me.nor do theliving.but the dead might needeachother.in fact, the dead might needeverything weneedandwe need so muchif we only knewwhat itwas.it isprobablyeverythingand we will allprobably dietrying to getitor diebecause wedon't getit.I hopeyou will understandwhen I am deadI got as muchaspossible.
Charles Bukowski
regret is mostly caused by not havingdone anything.
Charles Bukowski
sometimes it's hard to knowwhat todo.
Charles Bukowski
She had blue skin. And so did he. He kept it hid, And so did she. They searched for blue Their whole life through, Then passed right by - And never knew.
Shel Silverstein
Often I Wish I Werea potato.Eyes openedin all directions.Unafraid of the cold earth.The differencebetween life and deathfor somebody.
Katerina Stoykova-Klemer
On the Gallows OnceKofi AwoonorI crossed quite a fewof your rivers, my gods,into this plain where thirst reignsI heard the cry of mournersthe long cooing of the African wren at duskthe laughter of the children at dawnhad long ceasednight comes fast in our landwhere indeed are the promised vistasthe open fields, blue skies, the singing birdsand abiding love?History records actsof heroism, barbarismof some who had powerand abused it massivelyof some whose progenitorsplanned for themthe secure state of madnessfrom which no storm can shake them;of some who took the last shipsdisembarked on some far-off shores and forgotof some who simply laid down the loadand went home to the ancestors
Kofi Awoonor
The moon has a face like the clock in the hall;She shines on thieves on the garden wall,On streets and fields and harbour quays,And birdies asleep in the forks of the trees.
Robert Louis Stevenson
At sunset, on the river ban, KrishnaLoved her for the last time and left. . .That night in her husband's arms, Radha feltSo dead that he asked, What is wrong,Do you mind my kisses, love? And she said,Not not at all, but thought, What is It to the corpse if the maggots nip?
Kamala Suraiyya Das
Furthermore, he had beautiful eyes.
Jeramy Dodds
O youcan’t tell someone just how lonely he is
Jeramy Dodds
I wrought me a lyric of fire and fear,And called on the world to heed —Till strong men blenched at my haggard faceAnd shuddered, but would not read.So I stole me the gold of the mines of JoyAnd fashioned a conscious lie —And they gave me the wreath of the kings of SongAnd prayed that I might not die!(For the lie that I wrought was as old as the worldAnd dear as the vision of Heaven —Of the crimson lure of a maiden's lipsAnd the myth of a sin forgiven!)But my heart was sick, and my soul grew less, With the light of my failing days,Because I had lied to my Knowledge-GodFor the pottage of human praise.O I clung to the rim of the cliffs of HellAnd called on an empty Name —Till there dropped the tears of a weeping TruthAnd saved my soul from the flame.So I hid my soul in a maiden's hair,And climbed to a clearer view —And I found I had lied to a lying God,And the myth I had sung - was true!
Kenneth Rand
Sometimes a name seems our most arbitrary possession,and sometimes it seems like the grain in a rocklike a sculptor's hunk of Italian marble: Whack itand you might get either your first glimpse of a saintor a pile of rubble.
Lucia Perillo
you want to be angry but you can’t stop looking and when you look you love and when you love the entire world unfolds around you
Sina Queyras
if I finally do catch you and put my mouth to yours you will taste that summer.
Sina Queyras
...when the petals fallSay it is beautiful and good, say it is well
May Sarton
It is time I came back to my real lifeAfter this voyage to an island with no name,Where I lay down at sunrise drunk with light.
May Sarton