Quotes by Poets - Page 4

Breath (from the book Blue Bridge)Whispering to myselftWith every step I take,Trying out names, for I knowtThere is something yet to be called …..I know it, something up aheadtJust around the bendOr over the rise –tA bird taking to the skyFrom the edge of a jagged cliff – A bird floating outwardsIn silence ……. A silencetWaiting for a footstepTo crunch on stones,tFor a voice to fling upwardThrough sharp sunlighttWith a name…… callingBefore the bird could calltBefore the bird called.Oh the bird was there alrighttAnd sure it took flightWhen it heard me approachtBut it broke my heartWith a mighty croak!So I’m sitting here playingtWith a purple flowerSlender stem, no leavestPurple fizz –And it’s quiet again.tI am stillI am nothingtAnd the hillIs a long, long slopetDown, down, down to the seaFar below.I could rolltI could runI could screamtBut I am nothing.A cool wind blowstAnd the light is naked and namelessAnd the rocks are faces of angelstAnd the bird in the sky wheelsAnd cries to forget the earthtAnd its ancient bones –Oh, sensual pain –tWings…. Wings…. Wings,Singing wings.If only I could begin To describe the emptinessWhich fills me to the brimtWith new breathI might almost lose my nametAnd take instead a feather for my soul.
Jay Woodman
Consider, O Lord, how You sit atop the sky;like a man in a glass bottom boat.Consider sky elsewhere; worn thin as a mattress.
Cecilia Llompart
great web design without functionality is like a sports car with no engine.
Paul Cookson
running a business without marketing will kill it
Paul Cookson
Thinking for yourself and making your own decisions can be frightening. Letting go of other people’s expectations can leave you feeling empty for a time. And yet seeing yourself as an independent adult who can stand up for your own choices frees you to accept yourself as you are.
Ellen Bass
Laisha had got a glimpse of the vast ocean that lay before her. She could either eatch it recede from her sight or plunge into it. It was not possible to take the risk of plunging headlong into the ocean. No one viewed the ocean to be drowned into it. Everyone caught only a glimpse of it, exulted in having got this farand returned home with renewed zest. The knowledge that the ocean existed was overwhelming enough. One could wallow in the idea that there was indeed a further possibility, but one merely desisted. it was not right to acknowledge that one was also frightened of it.
Anuradha Bhattacharyya
I mean, have you ever imaginedthe ocean is alive, and needs to tell us something important, and the only way it can talkis by making waves crash, and we just lounge there, drenched in cocoa butter, on towels with crappy novels and volleyballs, sipping spritzers, as the ocean uses all its strength to repeatthe same warning over and over?
Jeffrey McDaniel
Wild waves rise and fall when they arrive And that’s what makes the calm sea alive
Munia Khan
War is a soul-shattering experience for the innocent.
Suzy Kassem
Tis time to die, when 'tis a shame to live.
Thomas Middleton
It's not what you have on the outside that glitters in light, it's what you have on the inside that shines in the dark.
Anthony Liccione
I got that money on my mind but I ain't blind. I see that if I want it, I have to grind.
Jonathan Anthony Burkett
They read a little bit, write a little, and especially agree with themselves on important moves, important information, important awards, important writers that they plan to enthrone forever in history through a variety of memberships and numerous prizes awarded under the influence of top bureaucrats who know everything, not only about literature, but also about secret conspiracies, the Masons that lurk in every corner to crucify someone, steal someone’s soul and sell it to an unknown devil, about whom only the chief bureaucrat possesses secret knowledge that he doesn’t share; about history, ghosts, missing continents; about who said what to whom in confidence.
Dejan Stojanovic
In the great cities we see so little of the world, we drift into our minority. In the little towns and villages there are no minorities; people are not numerous enough. You must see the world there, perforce. Every man is himself a class; every hour carries its new challenge. When you pass the inn at the end of the village you leave your favourite whimsy behind you; for you will meet no one who can share it. We listen to eloquent speaking, read books and write them, settle all the affairs of the universe. The dumb village multitudes pass on unchanging; the feel of the spade in the hand is no different for all our talk: good seasons and bad follow each other as of old. The dumb multitudes are no more concerned with us than is the old horse peering through the rusty gate of the village pound. The ancient map-makers wrote across unexplored regions, 'Here are lions.' Across the villages of fishermen and turners of the earth, so different are these from us, we can write but one line that is certain, 'Here are ghosts.' ("Village Ghosts")
W.B. Yeats
Stand up for what you believe in, even if you stand alone.
Suzy Kassem
We are all 'right' if we are being truly ourselves.... that is the best we can be in each moment, until we learn more...
Jay Woodman
Typically, in politics, more than one horse is owned and managed by the same team in an election. There's always and extra candidate who will slightly mimic the views of their team's opposing horse, to cancel out that person by stealing their votes just so the main horse can win. Elections are puppet shows. Regardless of their rainbow coats and many smiles, the agenda is one and the same.
Suzy Kassem
Farsi Couplet: Agar firdaus bar roo-e zameen ast, Hameen ast-o hameen ast-o hameen ast. English Translation: If there is a paradise on earth, It is this, it is this, it is this
Amir Khusrau
Farsi Couplet:Naala-e zanjeer-e Majnun arghanoon-e aashiqanastZauq-e aan andaza-e gosh-e ulul-albaab neestEnglish Translation:The creaking of the chain of Majnun is the orchestra of the lovers,To appreciate its music is quite beyond the ears of the wise.
Amir Khusrau
Visions from the gods are gifts alone for those who wander.
Roman Payne
Dorothy scratched her dark head, yawning wide, and white feathers floated out of her hair.
Laurie Lee
She watched the dark highway and entertained me with her vegetable-soup song, except that now there were people mixed in with the beans and potatoes: Dwayne Ray, Mattie, Esperanza, Lou Ann and all the rest. And me. I was the main ingredient.
Barbara Kingsolver
The toaster (lacking real bread) would pretend to make two crispy slices of toast. Or, if the day seemed special in some way, it would toast an imaginary English muffin.
Thomas M. Disch
So, without saying anything to the others, it made its way to the farthest corner of the meadow and began to toast an imaginary muffin. That was always the best way to unwind when things got to be too much for it.
Thomas M. Disch
Son: Father, you are my father. You sired me. I have sired no one because I left the primordial. I left you, I studied, I suffered, and my visions were pure. Before me, my father, new horizons were opened.Father: Yes, I am your father. I sired you and nowhere did I go. Where I was in the beginning, there I remained. I dwell in the old home, my estate is as it was. I spawned, I lived with your mother. Then I lived with peasant women and girls, spawning. I surrounded myself with chickens, roosters, turkeys. My poultry lay dozens of eggs a day. But I studied nothing, never did I suffer. My horizons remain the same, oh just the same. These spaces, ancient, veritably Russian, assembled around us are all — all just the same.("Adam")
Andrei Bely
I am your opus.
Sylvia Plath
Good-bye and hello, as always.
Roger Zelazny
Fenugreek, Tuesday's spice, when the air is green like mosses after rain.
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Walls have ears.Doors have eyes.Trees have voices.Beasts tell lies.Beware the rain.Beware the snow.Beware the manYou think you know.-Songs of Sapphique
Catherine Fisher
It is at despair at not being able to be noble and beautiful by natural means that we have made up our faces so strangely.
Charles Baudelaire
Neruda had his first dream, First meeting with the Moon and the Sun In sunny La Mancha, hiding in his heart,Where he learned how to sing like a nightingale.
Dejan Stojanovic
If I spelled out the Principles of FaithI would be barking on the moon.
Leonard Cohen
Like some winter animal the moon licks the salt of your hand,Yet still your hair foams violet as a lilac treeFrom which a small wood-owl calls.
Johannes Bobrowski
DeLois lived up the block on 142nd Street and never had her hair done, and all the neighbourhood women sucked their teeth as she walked by. Her crispy hair twinkled in the summer sun as her big proud stomach moved her on down the block while I watched, not caring whether or not she was a poem.
Audre Lorde
Woman! Come out! I have—" She looked down at the bloodless grass, embarrassed. "I have come to rescue you," she finally said, as if admitting that she were covered in boils.
Catherynne M. Valente
Gain fame, and the paparazzi or media waits and watches for them to slip, just to shame their name.
Anthony Liccione
I think it’s vital. It’s odd to me because many people say we live in these awful times and we need culture and art especially in times like these, in these dire times. Well, first of all, I don’t think these times are more dire than other times. People who say that just need to go back and read Herodotus, read any book of history, read a biography of Attila the Hun. If people are going to wring their hands over these troubled times, I would think that humor should be indispensable. I find it strange that –at least in my take on it—the people who are the most alarmed about the dire times we live in are the ones who seem to be humorless, in their taste for poetry anyway. Humor is just an ingredient.
Billy Collins
The Most Dangerous (Sab Ton Khatarnak - Paash)The most dangerous occurrence is not a robbery of hard work,The most horrifying act is not a torture by the police,A merger of treachery and greed is not the most dangerous.To be trapped while asleep is surely miserable,To be buried under the silence is surely miserable,But it is still not the most dangerous.To remain silent in the noise of corruption is surely miserable,Reading covertly under the light of a firefly is surely miserable,But it is still not the most dangerous.The most dangerous deed is to be filled with a dead silence,Not feeling any agony against the unjust and bearing it all.Getting trapped in the routine of running from home to work and from work to home,The most dangerous accident is a death of our dreams.The most dangerous thing is that watch which runs on your wrist, but stands still for your eyes**A Translation of Paash's poem Sab ton Khatarnak by Jasz Gill
Paash
When you discipline a child you prepare them for a responsible and accountable adulthood.
Gugu Mona
I am Envy, begotten of a chimney-sweeper and an oyster-wife. I cannot read, and therefore wish all books were burnt; I am lean with seeing others eat - O that there would come a famine through all the world, that all might die, and I live alone; then thou should'st see how fat I would be! But must thou sit and I stand? Come down, with a vengeance!
Christopher Marlowe
He tried not to laugh, but he wasn't good at controlling all the laughter that lived inside of him.
Benjamin Alire Sáenz
Isolation allows me to think more clearly, and I think out loud sometimes.After all, I wouldn't want to accuse anyone of plagiarism.
Charmaine J.Forde
And I realize the unbearable anguish of insanity: how uninformed people can be thinking insane people are "happy," O God, in fact it was Irwin Garden once warned me not to think the madhouses are full of "happy nuts." (p. 200)
Jack Kerouac
People are like water: Many rush pass you, as some will over-flood. Some will drown you, or force you to go their current ways. Some will be cold or hot-tempered, but try to say with the warm ones. Some will come as a raging wave and cause a ripple, or a calm sea, supporting you, quenching your thirst, and flow by your side to where kisses will always stay wet.
Anthony Liccione
It came out sparkling like liquid sky.
Laurie Lee
The half of her that is underwater would like to beunder a desk, the head of her that is underwaterwould like to be fully immersed.
Patricia Lockwood
When a fat person goes in the water naked, would it still be called skinny-dipping?
Anthony Liccione
In the universe, there are things that are known, and things that are unknown, and in between them, there are doors.
William Blake
Then the one called Raltariki is really a demon?" asked Tak."Yes—and no," said Yama, "If by 'demon' you mean a malefic, supernatural creature, possessed of great powers, life span and the ability to temporarily assume virtually any shape—then the answer is no. This is the generally accepted definition, but it is untrue in one respect.""Oh? And what may that be?""It is not a supernatural creature.""But it is all those other things?""Yes.""Then I fail to see what difference it makes whether it be supernatural or not—so long as it is malefic, possesses great powers and life span and has the ability to change its shape at will.""Ah, but it makes a great deal of difference, you see. It is the difference between the unknown and the unknowable, between science and fantasy—it is a matter of essence. The four points of the compass be logic, knowledge, wisdom and the unknown. Some do bow in that final direction. Others advance upon it. To bow before the one is to lose sight of the three. I may submit to the unknown, but never to the unknowable.
Roger Zelazny
dear samanthai’m sorrywe have to get a divorcei know that seems like an odd way to start a love letter but let me explain:it’s not youit sure as hell isn’t meit’s just human beings don’t love as well as insects doi love you.. far too much to let what we have be ruined by the failings of our speciesi saw the way you looked at the waiter last nighti know you would never DO anything, you never do but..i saw the way you looked at the waiter last nightdid you know that when a female fly accepts the pheromones put off by a male fly, it re-writes her brain, destroys the receptors that receive pheromones, sensing the change, the male fly does the same. when two flies love each other they do it so hard, they will never love anything else ever again. if either one of them dies before procreation can happen both sets of genetic code are lost forever. now that… is dedication.after Elizabeth and i broke up we spent three days dividing everything we had bought togetherlike if i knew what pots were mine like if i knew which drapes were mine somehow the pain would go awaythis is not trueafter two praying mantises mate, the nervous system of the male begins to shut downwhile he still has control over his motor functionshe flops onto his back, exposing his soft underbelly up to his lover like a giftshe then proceeds to lovingly dice him into tiny cubesspooning every morsel into her mouthshe wastes nothingeven the exoskeleton goesshe does this so that once their children are born she has something to regurgitate to feed themnow that.. is selflessnessi could never do that for youso i have a new plani’m gonna leave you nowi’m gonna spend the rest of my life committing petty injusticesi hope you do the samei will jay walk at every opportunity i will steal things i could easily affordi will be rude to strangersi hope you do the samei hope reincarnation is reali hope our petty crimes are enough to cause us to be reborn as lesser creatures i hope we are reborn as fliesso that we can love each other as hard as we were meant to.
Jared Singer
Show me slowly what I onlyknow the limits ofDance me to the end of love
Leonard Cohen
They dined on mince, and slices of quinceWhich they ate with a runcible spoon;And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,They danced by the light of the moon.
Edward Lear
Ceux qui revent eveilles ont conscience de 1000 choses qui echapent a ceux qui ne revent qu'endormis.The one who has day dream are aware of 1000 things that the one who dreams only when he sleeps will never understand.(it sounds better in french, I do what I can with my translation...)
Edgar Allan Poe
...we have no right to decide off-hand that it is an unnatural pleasure to eat sawdust. A man might be constituted so that he liked it. And so long as his peculiarity doesn't damage or interfere with other people, there's no reason why he shouldn't be left alone.But if it is the man's fixed belief that sawdust eating is essential to human happiness; if he attributes almost everything that happens either to the effects of eating it or not eating it; if he imagines that most of the people he meets are also sawdust-eaters, and above all, if he thinks that the salvation of the world depends entirely upon making laws to compel people to eat sawdust, whether they like it or not, then it is fair to say that his mind is unbalanced on the subject; and that, further, the practice itself, however innocent it may appear, is in that particular case perverse. Sanity consists in the proper equilibrium of ideas in general. That is the only sense in which it is true that genius is connected with insanity.
Aleister Crowley
To acquire the full consciousness of self is to know oneself so different from others that no longer feels allied with men except by purely animal contacts: nevertheless, among souls of this degree, there is an ideal fraternity based on differences,--while society fraternity is based on resemblances.The full consciousness of self can be called originality of soul, -and all this is said only to point out the group of rare beings to which Andre Gide belongs.The misfortune of these beings, when they express themselves, is that they do it with such odd gestures that men fear to approach them; their life of social contacts must often revolve in the brief circle of ideal fraternities; or, when the mob consents to admit such souls, it is as curiosities or museum objects. Their glory is, finally, to be loved from afar & almost understood, as parchments are seen & read above sealed cases.
Rémy de Gourmont
If you knew how much work went into it, you wouldn't call it genius.
Michelangelo Buonarroti
It did not last: the Devil howling 'Ho, Let Einstein be,' restored the status quo.
John Collings Squire
I am his Highness' dog at Kew;Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?
Alexander Pope
God will hear your cry even when your voice can't shout out loud unto him. He will see your tears even when can no longer shed any.
Gugu Mona
The pessimist reason that things just happen, where the optimist believe that things happen for a reason.
Anthony Liccione