Quotes by Poets - Page 222

I can tell you that solitudeIs not all exaltation, inner spaceWhere the soul breaths and work can be done.Solitude exposes the nerve,Raises up ghosts.The past, never at rest, flows through it.
May Sarton
Give winter nothing; hold; and let the flake Poise or dissolve along your upheld arms. All flawless hexagons may melt and break; While you must feel the summer's rage of fire, Beyond this frigid season's empty storms. Banished to bloom, and bear the birds' desire.
James Wright
And now it is said of meThat my love is nothing because I have borne no children, Or because I have fathered none;That I twisted the twig in my handsAnd cut the blossom free too soon from the seed;That I lay across the fire,And snuffed it dead sooner than draft or rain.But I have turned away, and drawn myself Upright to walk along the room alone. Across the dark the spines of cactus plants Remind me how I go—aloof, obscure, Indifferent to the words the children chalk Against my house and down the garden walls. They cannot tear the garden out of me,Nor smear my love with names. Love is a cliff, A clear, cold curve of stone, mottled by stars, smirched by the morning, carved by the dark sea Till stars and dawn and waves can slash no more, Till the rock’s heart is found and shaped again.I keep the house and say no words, the evening Falls like a petal down the shawl of trees. I light the fire and see the blossom dance On air alone; I will not douse that flame, That searing flower; I will burn in it.I will not banish love to empty rain.For I know that I am asked to hate myself For their sweet sakeWho sow the world with child.I am given to burn on the dark fire they make With their sly voices.But I have burned already down to bone. There is a fire that burns beyond the namesOf sludge and filth of which this world is made. Agony sears the dark flesh of the body,And lifts me higher than the smoke, to rise Above the earth, above the sacrifice;Until my soul flares outward like a blue Blossom of gas fire dancing in mid-air:Free of the body’s work of twisted iron.
James Wright
We are only allowed to livedue to some colossal misunderstanding.
Jeramy Dodds
she wanted because art
Nicole Brossard
Strephon kissed me in the spring,Robin in the fall,But Colin only looked at me,And never kissed at all.Strephon's kiss was lost in jest,Robin's lost in play,But the kiss in Colin's eyesHaunts me night and day.
Sarah Teasdale
You may shoot me with your words,You may cut me with your eyes,You may kill me with your hatefulness,But still, like air, I’ll rise.
Maya Angelou
when Whitman wrote, “I sing the body electric”I know what hemeantI know what hewanted:to be completely alive every momentin spite of the inevitable.we can’t cheat death but we can make itwork so hardthat when it does takeusit will have known a victory just asperfect asours
Charles Bukowski
Her touch is like doing simple mathWhen she sleeps in the bed, subtracting clothesThere is a red ink, like a sparkling red wine, adding colorsDividing body, remembering gods, without multiplying
Santosh Kalwar
I will always know the glory of the beautiful and rare, as they will know security from labour and prayer. As they will hear the laughter of the children they gave life, I will know the torments of the song born under knife.And to their girls, they will give,while with their sons they'll share;where I will bear a song—a son! The wife of despair.
Roman Payne
After the fierce midsummer all ablaze Has burned itself to ashes, and expires In the intensity of its own fires,There come the mellow, mild, St. Martin daysCrowned with the calm of peace, but sad with haze. So after Love has led us, till he tires Of his own throes, and torments, and desires,Comes large-eyed friendship: with a restful gaze,He beckons us to follow, and across Cool verdant vales we wander free from care. Is it a touch of frost lies in the air?Why are we haunted with a sense of loss?We do not wish the pain back, or the heat;And yet, and yet, these days are incomplete
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Ultimately, we will lose each otherto something. I would hope for grandcircumstance—death or disaster.But it might not be that way at all.It might be that you walk outone morning after making loveto buy cigarettes, and never return,or I fall in love with another …It might be a slow drift into indifference.Either way, we’ll have to learnto bear the weight of the eventualitythat we will lose each other to something.So why not begin now, while your headrests like a perfect moon in my lap …?Why not reach for the seam in this …night and tear it, just a little, so the fallingcan begin? Because later, when we crosseach other on the streets, and are forcedto look away, when we’ve thrownthe disregarded pieces of our togethernessinto bedroom drawers and the smellof our bodies is disappearing like the sweetdecay of lilies—what will we call it,when it’s no longer love?
Tishani Doshi
My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here;My heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer;A-chasing the wild-deer, and following the roe,My heart's in the Highlands wherever I go.
Robert Burns
But the seawhich no one tendsis also a garden
William Carlos Williams
I believed that I wanted to be a poet, but deep down I just wanted to be a poem.
jaime gil de beidma
there are only so many thingsthat you can fix with your hands....What they don't realize is I am not a thing to fix.
Danabelle Gutierrez
THE MOON was but a chin of goldtA night or two ago,tAnd now she turns her perfect facetUpon the world below.tHer forehead is of amplest blond;t Her cheek like beryl stone;tHer eye unto the summer dewtThe likest I have known.tHer lips of amber never part;tBut what must be the smileUpon her friend she could bestowtWere such her silver will!tAnd what a privilege to betBut the remotest star!tFor certainly her way might passt Beside your twinkling door.tHer bonnet is the firmament,tThe universe her shoe,tThe stars the trinkets at her belt,tHer dimities of blue.
Emily Dickinson
ASK NOT IF POETRY IS DEAD, ASK HOW YOU CAN LIVE FOR POETRY.
Amy King
Looking from outside into an open window one never sees as much as when one looks through a closed window. There is nothing more profound, more mysterious, more pregnant, more insidious, more dazzling than a window lighted by a single candle. What one can see out in the sunlight is always less interesting than what goes on behind a windowpane. In that black or luminous square life lives, life dreams, life suffers.
Charles Baudelaire
The touched heart madly stirs,your laughter is water hurrying over pebbles - every gesture is a proclamation,every sound is speech...
Sappho
Death stoops over me.I'm a problem in chess. Hehas the solution.
Tomas Tranströmer
The words of the true poems give you more than poems, they give you to form for yourself poems, religions, politics, war, peace, behavior, histories, essays, daily life, & everything else, they balance the ranks, colors, races, creeds, and the sexes, they do not seek beauty, they are sought, forever touching them or close upon them follows beauty, longing, fain, love-sick. They prepare for death, yet they are not the finish, but rather the outset, they bring none of his or her terminus or to be content & full, whom they take they take into space to behold the birth of the stars, to learn one of the meanings, to launch off with absolute faith, to sweep through the ceaseless rings & never be quiet again.
Walt Whitman
Lovers think quite different thoughtswhile lying side by side.
Maya Angelou
If you are a dreamer, come sit by my fire. For we have some flax-golden tales to spin; come in! Come in!
Shel Silverstein
My life is filled with buckets of tears; thousands of people shouting in my ears; the humming and chirping of hundreds of Himalayan birds, which are irresistible to hear.
Santosh Kalwar
Projection from the beginning of time
White women with a passionate horns
Butchered yet another beloved
Santosh Kalwar
OnceThere was a quiet island,With a name.You must believe me When I say that sunlight, Impure but beautiful, Broke upon the bay, silveredThe unrepentant, burning moon.
Edwin Thumboo
Beneath it allI kept faith with Ithaca, travelled,Travelled and travelled,Suffering much, enjoying a little;Met strange people singingNew myths; made myths myself.But this lion of the seaSalt-maned, scaly, wondrous of tail,Touched with power, insistentOn this brief promontory...Puzzles.
Edwin Thumboo
How Beautiful is the rain!After the dust and heat,In the broad and fiery street,In the narrow lane,How beautiful is the rain!How it clatters along the roofs,Like the tramp of hoofs!How it gushes and struggles outFrom the throat of the overflowing spout!Across the window-paneIt pours and pours;And swift and wide,With a muddy tide,Like a river down the gutter roarsThe rain, the welcome rain!-"Rain in Summer
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
(This is from a tribute poem to Ronnie James Dio: Former lead vocalist of the band Rainbow, Black Sabbath. This is written with all the titles of the hit songs of DIO. The titles are all in upper case)You can “CATCH THE RAINBOW” –“A RAINBOW IN THE DARK”Through “ROCK & ROLL CHILDREN”“HOLY DIVER” will lurk“BEFORE THE FALL” of “ELECTRA”“ALL THE FOOLS SAILED AWAY”“JESUS,MARY AND THE HOLY GHOST”-“LORD OF THE LAST DAY”“MASTER OF THE MOON” you areWhen my “ONE FOOT IN THE GRAVE”With our “BLACK”, “COLD FEET”,“MYSTERY” of “PAIN” you craveYou’re “CAUGHT IN THE MIDDLE”,“BETWEEN TWO HEARTS”When “HUNGRY FOR HEAVEN”“HUNTER OF THE HEART” hurts“FALLEN ANGELS” “FEED MY HEART”“FEVER DREAMS” “FEED MY HEAD”“I AM” “ANOTHER LIE”“AFTER ALL (THE DEAD)”Not “GUILTY” if you “HIDE IN THE RAINBOW’’With your perfect “GUITAR SOLO”“DON’T TELL THE KIDS” to “DREAM EVIL”Don’t “GIVE HER THE GUN” to follow“DON’T TALK TO STRANGERS”Those “EVIL EYES” can see“LORD OF THE NIGHT” “MISTREATED”;“MY EYES” hate to fancy“SHAME ON THE NIGHT” “TURN UP THE NIGHT”Now it’s “TIME TO BURN”“TWISTED” “VOODOO” does “WALK ON WATER”And today its our turn“BLOOD FROM A STONE” “BORN ON THE SUN”I’m “BETTER IN THE DARK” “BREATHLESS”The “PRISONER OF PARADISE” you are!Forever you are deathless“SACRED HEART” “SHIVERS”Laying “NAKED IN THE RAIN”“THIS IS YOUR LIFE”- “ WILD ONE”!Your “GOLDEN RULES” we gain“IN DREAMS” “I SPEED AT NIGHT”I’m “LOSING MY INSANITY”“ANOTHER LIE”: “COMPUTER GOD”Your “HEAVEN AND HELL”- my vanity!By “KILLING THE DRAGON”“I COULD HAVE BEEN A DREAMER”I’m “THE LAST IN LINE” To “SCREAM”Like an “INVISIBLE” screamerNow that you are gone“THE END OF THE WORLD” is here“STRAIGHT THROUGH THE HEART”“PUSH” “JUST ANOTHER DAY” in fear“CHILDREN OF THE SEA” “ DYING IN AMERICA”Is it “DEATH BY LOVE”?“FACES IN THE WINDOW” looking forA “GYPSY” from aboveDear “STARGAZER” from “STRANGE HIGHWAYS”Our love “HERE’S TO YOU”“WE ROCK” “ONE MORE FOR THE ROAD”The “OTHER WORLD” anew“ONE NIGHT IN THE CITY” with “NEON KNIGHTS”“THE EYES” “STAY OUT OF MY MIND”The “STARSTRUCK” “SUNSET SUPERMAN”Is what we long to find“THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING”Is the “INSTITUTIONAL MAN”“SHOOT SHOOT” to “TURN TO STONE”“WHEN A WOMAN CRIES” to planTo “STAND UP AND SHOUT”before “ THE KING OF ROCK AND ROLL”Though “GOD HATES HEAVY METAL”“EAT YOUR HEART OUT” to reach the goal.From the poem- Holy Dio: the Diver (A tribute to Ronnie James Dio)
Munia Khan
If lighthouse becomes a burning candle, flickered upon ocean's insanity.Your sailing heart there anchors to handle the obsessed breeze towards sand dune's vanity.
Munia Khan
The stars will live for me, if not anything else
Munia Khan
But how wonderful when the tale is told,And the message that is meant for usOpens like the scents of a mountain flower!
Mazisi Kunene
free from ivory-towerthe pencil twirlsacross the footpath
Santosh Kalwar
The echo of a red rose
at the sunset, you decided
to check out.
Santosh Kalwar
Once there was an elephant,Who tried to use the telephant-No! no! I mean an elephoneHe tried to use the telephone-(Dear me! I am not certain quiteThat even now I've got it right.)Howe'er it was, he got his trunkEntangled in the telephunk;The more he tried to get it free, The louder buzzed the telephee-(I fear I'd better drop the songOf elephop and telephong!)
Laura Elizabeth Richards
When the heartIs cut or cracked or brokenDo not clutch itLet the wound lie openLet the windFrom the good old sea blow inTo bathe the wound with saltAnd let it sting.Let a stray dog lick itLet a bird lean in the hole and singA simple song like a tiny bellAnd let it ringLet it go.Let it out.Let it all unravel.Let it free and it can beA path on which to travel.
Michael Leunig
It is December, and nobody asked if I was ready.
Sarah Kay
This is how I disappear in pieces.This is how I leave while not moving from my seat.This is how I dance away.This is how I'm gone before you wake.
Sarah Kay
The ProdigalDark morning rainMeant to fallOn a prison and a schoolyard,Falling meanwhileOn my mother and her old dog.How slow she shuffles nowIn my father’s Sunday shoes.The dog by her sideTrembling with each stepAs he tries to keep up.I am on another corner waitingWith my head shaved.My mind hops like a sparrowIn the rain.I’m always watching and worrying about her.Everything is a magic ritual,A secret cinema,The way she appears in a window hours laterTo set the empty bowlAnd spoon on the table,And then exitsSo that the day may pass,And the night may fallInto the empty bowl,Empty room, empty house,While the rain keepsKnocking at the front door.
Charles Simic
I cannot forgive you. That day, if you had not refused, I would have given you a present. I would have carved my love in stone.
Conchitina Cruz
The IdealThis is where I came from.I passed this way.This should not be shameful Or hard to say.A self is a self. It is not a screen. A person should respectWhat he has been. This is my past Which I shall not discard. This is the ideal.This is hard.
James Fenton
When the music note grows tired we will land on the wings of a guardian - One already accustomed to my attempts to fly One aware of my weakness for a beautiful try
Phibby Venable
Amy King is a true bard.
Tomaž Šalamun
YOUR WORDS ARE MADE OF THE AIR I BREATHE.
Amy King
Rare and powerful harmonies exist,Shaping both scent and contour in a flower.Thus brilliance lies unseen by us until,Beneath the chisel, it blazes in the diamond.And thus do images of fleeting vision,Drifting above like cloud-forms in the sky,Once turned to stone live on from age to age,Held always in a faultless, polished phrase.("A Sonnet To Form")
Valery Bryusov
Ah dearest heart if you will but waitI'll become the ideal soulmatenevermore causing you a moment's troubleand I but a mere ectoplasmic bubbleswaying above your gorgeous headgruff and garrulous and safely dead.
Christy Brown
Shall the dire day break when lifefinds us merely husband and wifewith passion not so much deniedas neatly laundered and put asideand the old joyous insistencetrimmed to placid coexistence?Shall we sometime arise from bedwith not a carnal thought in our headlook at each other without surpriseout of wide awake uncandid eyestouch and know no immediate urgewhere all mysteries converge?Speak for the sake of something to sayand now and then put on a displayof elaborate mimicry of the past to provethat ritual reigns where once ruled loveand calmly observe those bleak ritesthat once made splendour of our nights?Dear, when we stop being outrageousand no longer find contagiousthe innumerable ecstasies we findin rise of hand or leap of mind - not now or then, love, need we fear
Christy Brown
Our past sins, our fractured lives--soon nothing but drowned stars in dark skies.
Beatriz Fitzgerald Fernandez
we are two like-minded creatures too well-matched, both equal halves of a whole not altogether wholesome
Beatriz Fitzgerald Fernandez
Hers is a timeless life weaving through other longer lives like a flash of lightning in a clouded evening sky.
Beatriz Fitzgerald Fernandez
A litany of headlights blinding her, she stands unsteady on the dotted traffic line, takes timid steps toward rolled up windows behind which any horror could crouch....
Beatriz Fitzgerald Fernandez
The Earth Turned to Bring us Closerby: Eugenio MontejoThe earth turned to bring us closerit turned on itself and within usuntil it finally brought us together in this dreamas written in the Symposium.Nights passed by, snowfalls and solsticestime passed in minutes and millennia.An ox cart that was on its way to Nineveharrived in Nebraska.A rooster was singing some distance from the world,in one of the thousand pre-lives of our fathers.The earth was spinning with its musiccarrying us on board;it didn't stop turning a single momentas if so much love,so much that is beautifulwas only an adagio written long agoin the Symposium's score.
Eugenio Montejo
The mercy bulletI envy horses: if they break a leg and feel humiliated because they can no longer charge back and forth in the wind, they are cured by a mercy bullet. So if something in me gets broken, physically or spiritually, I would do well to look for a proficient killer, even if he is one of my enemies. I will pay him a fee and the price of the bullet, kiss his hand and his revolver, and if I am able to write, extol him in a poem of rare beauty, for which he can choose the metre and rhyme.
Mahmoud Darwish
A poem is a place where the conditions of beyondness and withinness are made palpable, where to imagine is to feel what it is like to be. It allows us to have the life we are denied because we are too busy living. Even more paradoxically, a poem permits us to live in ourselves as if we were just out of reach of ourselves.
Mark Strand
Arrive before your Husband. Not that I canSee quite what good arriving first will do;But still arrive before him. When he's takenHis place upon the couch and you go tooTo sit beside him, on your best behaviorStealthily touch my foot, and look at me,Watching my nods, my eyes, my face's language;Catch and return my signals secretly.I'll send a wordless message with my eyebrows;You'll read my fingers' words, words traced in wine.When you recall our games of love together,Your finger on rosy cheeks must trace a line.If in your silent thoughts you wish to chide me,Let your hand hold the lobe of your soft ear;When, darling, what I do or say gives pleasure,Keep turning to an fro the ring you wear.When you wish well-earned curses on your husband,Lay your hand on the table, as in prayer.If he pours you wine, watch out, tell him to drink it;Ask for what you want from the waiter there.I shall take next the glass you hand the waiterAnd I'll drink from the place you took your sips;If he should offer anything he's tasted,Refuse whatever food has touch his lips.Don't let him plant his arms upon your shoulders,Don't let him rest your gentle head on his hard chest,Don't let your dress, your breasts, admit his fingers,And--most of all--no kisses to be pressed!You kiss--and I'll reveal myself your lover;I'll say 'they're mine'; my legal claim I'll stake.All this, of course I'll see, But what's well hiddenunder your dress--blind terror makes me quake.
Ovid
Mislaid flame of tender emotionsRekindled.Together we live to the point of tears,I wouldn’t want it any other way.
Scott Hastie
There can be no law of nature, no science,No aberrant infliction of human willThat unchained the soul cannot conquer,Simply sweep away, should it chose to.
Scott Hastie
Sacred space in whichTo distil, like amber,The best of your love.
Scott Hastie
beware those quick to praise for they need praise in return beware those who are quick to censor they are afraid of what they do not know beware those who seek constant crowds for they are nothing alone
Charles Bukowski