Poetry Quotes - Page 116

My true-love hath my heart and I have his, By just exchange one for the other given: I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss; There never was a bargain better driven.

All at once, something wonderful happened, although at first, it seemed perfectly ordinary. A female goldfinch suddenly hove into view. She lighted weightlessly on the head of a bankside purple thistle and began emptying the seedcase, sowing the air with down.tThe lighted frame of my window filled. The down rose and spread in all directions, wafting over the dam’s waterfall and wavering between the tulip trunks and into the meadow. It vaulted towards the orchard in a puff; it hovered over the ripening pawpaw fruit and staggered up the steep faced terrace. It jerked, floated, rolled, veered, swayed. The thistle down faltered down toward the cottage and gusted clear to the woods; it rose and entered the shaggy arms of pecans. At last it strayed like snow, blind and sweet, into the pool of the creek upstream, and into the race of the creek over rocks down. It shuddered onto the tips of growing grasses, where it poised, light, still wracked by errant quivers. I was holding my breath. Is this where we live, I thought, in this place in this moment, with the air so light and wild?tThe same fixity that collapses stars and drives the mantis to devour her mate eased these creatures together before my eyes: the thick adept bill of the goldfinch, and the feathery coded down. How could anything be amiss? If I myself were lighter and frayed, I could ride these small winds, too, taking my chances, for the pleasure of being so purely played.tThe thistle is part of Adam’s curse. “Cursed is the ground for thy sake, in sorrow shalt thou eat of it; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee.” A terrible curse: But does the goldfinch eat thorny sorrow with the thistle or do I? If this furling air is fallen, then the fall was happy indeed. If this creekside garden is sorrow, then I seek martyrdom. tI was weightless; my bones were taut skins blown with buoyant gas; it seemed that if I inhaled too deeply, my shoulders and head would waft off. Alleluia.

His mindIt says survival of the fittest butHis soulRevival of the idiotsSo good riddance, dancing

The kind of poem I produced in those days was hardly anything more than a sign I made of being alive, of passing or having passed, or hoping to pass, through certain intense human emotions. It was a phenomenon of orientation rather than of art, thus comparable to stripes of paint on a roadside rock or to a pillared heap of stones marking a mountain trail.

Will you walk into my parlour?" said the Spider to the Fly

She burns like the sunBeautiful when she comes undoneNo restraintsPure passion flowing through her veinsMadness refusing to be tamed.

There has fallen a splendid tearFrom the passion-flower at the gate.She is coming, my dove, my dear;She is coming, my life, my fate.The red rose cries, "She is near, she is near;"And the white rose weeps, "She is late;"The larkspur listens, "I hear, I hear;"And the lily whispers, "I wait."She is coming, my own, my sweet;Were it ever so airy a tread,My heart would hear her and beat,Were it earth in an earthy bed;My dust would hear her and beat,Had I lain for a century dead,Would start and tremble under her feet,And blossom in purple and red.

I wish to offer the world more than just beauty and plastic moments. I wish to offer the world depth, conversation, poetry and wisdom. I hope you do not deny me when I open these doors.

Oh let me live my own! and die so too! ("To live and die is all I have to do:") Maintain a poet's dignity and ease, And see what friends, and read what books I please.

To-day I shall be strong,No more shall yield to wrong,Shall squander life no more;Days lost, I know not how,I shall retrieve them now;Now I shall keep the vowI never kept before.

Let be be finale of seem.The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

Poetry, will you show me where your words find peace?

People are looking for chimes and resonances. Chimes leave echoes, and that's what rhyme is. Poetry is about leaving an echo imprint in somebody else's head, in the dark snow of their mind.

The winds, the sea, and the moving tides are what they are. If there is wonder and beauty and majesty in them, science will discover these qualities... If there is poetry in my book about the sea, it is not because I deliberately put it there, but because no one could write truthfully about the sea and leave out the poetry.

Kiss with your soul, where lips can never reach. Touch with your eyes, penetrate deep. Love every part, fully, complete.

And when I stand in the receiving linelike Jackie Kennedywithout the pillbox hat,if Jackie were fat and had taken enough Klonopinto still an ox,and you whisperI think of youdon't finish withbecause I've been going to Weight Watcherson Tuesdays and wonder

Those who eat porridge and those who drink gruel live and die.Even though the faces change,porridge eaters and gruel drinkers continue to manifest.

Just knowing that you are there and you would be thinking about me while I am thinking about you makes my heart feel serene and contented.

If you find yourself still clinging to every feeling you thought was lost forever... Maybe, just maybe, it's the only place you can be found.

Lay a golden egg.After you built a nest,You wait for a leg.And you land next. Now you hope and pray.Expect for the best. Go on with no delay. Get it right at last.

So very lovely His blood on her swollen lips His first vampireSo very lovely He would have to remember Each salacious cutHe took her slowly Bled her of secrets and screams He smiled contemplating That vampires bled just like whores.

When my worldwas nothing but darknessI set my soul on fire.

Who is the third who walks always beside you?When I count, there are only you and I togetherBut when I look ahead up the white roadThere is always another one walking beside youGliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hoodedI do not know whether a man or a woman-But who is that on the other side of you?

At first I protested and rebelled against poetry. I was about to deny my poetic worlds. I was doing violence to my illusions with analysis, science, and learning Henry’s language, entering Henry’s world. I wanted to destroy by violence and animalism my tenuous fantasies and illusions and my hypersensitivity. A kind of suicide. The ignominy awakened me. Then June came and answered the cravings of my imagination and saved me. Or perhaps she killed me, for now I am started on a course of madness.

Love does not claim materialistic possession of any kind, it yields complete freedom.

You may follow the footstepsThe whole day will passWith you going around in circlesYet not reaching anywhere at last!

Take a shower. Wash away every trace of yesterday. Of smells. Of weary skin. Get dressed. Make coffee, windows open, the sun shining through. Hold the cup with two hands and notice that you feel the feeling of warmth. 
 You still feel warmth.
Now sit down and get to work. Keep your mind sharp, head on, eyes on the page and if small thoughts of worries fight their ways into your consciousness: threw them off like fires in the night and keep your eyes on the track. Nothing but the task in front of you. Get off your chair in the middle of the day. Put on your shoes and take a long walk on open streets around people. Notice how they’re all walking, in a hurry, or slowly. Smiling, laughing, or eyes straight forward, hurried to get to wherever they’re going. And notice how you’re just one of them. Not more, not less. Find comfort in the way you’re just one in the crowd. Your worries: no more, no less.Go back home. Take the long way just to not pass the liquor store. Don’t buy the cigarettes. Go straight home. Take off your shoes. Wash your hands. Your face. Notice the silence. Notice your heart. It’s still beating. Still fighting. Now get back to work.
Work with your mind sharp and eyes focused and if any thoughts of worries or hate or sadness creep their ways around, shake them off like a runner in the night for you own your mind, and you need to tame it. Focus. Keep it sharp on track, nothing but the task in front of you.Work until your eyes are tired and head is heavy, and keep working even after that. Then take a shower, wash off the day. Drink a glass of water. Make the room dark. Lie down and close your eyes.
Notice the silence. Notice your heart. Still beating. Still fighting. You made it, after all. You made it, another day. And you can make it one more. 
You’re doing just fine.
You’re doing fine.I’m doing just fine.

It's true that a picture is worth a thousand words, but it's also true that a word is worth a thousand pictures.

i over love.i under love.i am either a floodor i am nothing.

BLESSINGS ARE IMMEASURABLEYou canLose a childOr a parent,The love of your life,A good job,A game,A deal,A bet,An idea,Your favorite thing,Money,Your best friend,A moment,An opportunity,A chance,Your keys,Your mind,Your health,Your identity,Your virginity,Your religion,Your shirt,Your license,ID or Passport,Phone or phone number,Hope,Faith,Luck,Your pride,Or your house,And feel likeYou've lost everything,And keep on losing.StopCounting lossesAnd start counting your blessings.Only then,Will you discover that lossesAre easier to point outAnd countThan blessings,And that blessingsOutnumber your lossesFor they are trulyImmeasurable.It is only normal thatPeople count losses withTheir minds,And ignoreTo count blessingsWith the graciousnessOf their hearts.

I only wake up twice a year,And twice a year I live;In the equinox I am aware,Flying high and everywhere;On other days I grieve.

If you must write prose or poems, the words you use should be your own. Don't plagiarize or take 'on loan'. There's always someone, somewhere, with a big nose, who knows, who'll trip you up and laugh when you fall.

With each kiss in the cold house 
we swallow clouds of breath – exhaled spirit, speech bubbles
 we’d rather lick away 
than fill with words. We run naked from room to room, 
keeping the walls warm.
 Our bodies blur through the halls 
of your house, its winter circulation.

I shall have my lasso, I shall lead the course;I recognize it’s time to mount a different horse.

True Wit is Nature to advantage dress'dWhat oft was thought, but ne'er so well express'd;Something whose truth convinced at sight we find,That gives us back the image of our mind.As shades more sweetly recommend the light,So modest plainness sets off sprightly wit.

I almost gave my life long ago for a thingThat has gone to dust now, stinging my eyes—It is strange how often a heart must be brokenBefore the years can make it wise.

I had let it all grow. I had supposed It was all OK. Your lifeWas a liner I voyaged in.Costly education had fitted you out.Financiers and committees and consultantsEffaced themselves in the gleam of your finish.You trembled with the new life of those engines.That first morning,Before your first class at College, you sat thereSipping coffee. Now I know, as I did not,What eyes waited at the back of the classTo check your first professional performanceAgainst their expectations. What assessorsWaited to see you justify the costAnd redeem their gamble. What a furnaceOf eyes waited to prove your metal. I watchedThe strange dummy stiffness, the misery,Of your blue flannel suit, its straitjacket, uglyHalf-approximation to your ideaOf the properties you hoped to ease into,And your horror in it. And the tannedAlmost green undertinge of your faceShrunk to its wick, your scar lumpish, your plaitedHead pathetically tiny.You waited,Knowing yourself helpless in the tweezersOf the life that judges you, and I sawThe flayed nerve, the unhealable face-woundWhich was all you had for courage.I saw that what you gripped, as you sipped,Were terrors that killed you once already.Now I see, I saw, sitting, the lonelyGirl who was going to die.That blue suit.A mad, execution uniform,Survived your sentence. But then I sat, stilled,Unable to fathom what stilled youAs I looked at you, as I am stilledPermanently now, permanentlyBending so briefly at your open coffin.

A Coy Aversion...a fluttertoo shyto be seen...

Though I exist in the realms of day and night, I'm only truly alive in the moments between.

Society will always be too fragile to accept us for all that makes us beautiful.

The glamorous splender of a mystical moon.. Natures sleepless wonders.

Good or bad, positive or negative, there is no comment more insulting to a poet than one displaying that you have not properly read and considered the things they wrote.

Your love was a vine - enchanting and beautiful, crawling around my heart and up my throat; then it strangled me. Your love, hauntingly tragic.

THE DAY I ALMOST KILLED MYSELFIt was afternoon and the razorreflected the sky like like a mirror. The bath towelswere white like the bathtub and my wristswere white like the towels.The bathwater got lukewarm.The afternoon turned into lateafternoon and I was still pulling ropes of airinto my lungs like a sailor. The razor reflectedthe sunset. The bathwater got cold.The bath towels were white like the bathtub and my wrists were white like the towels.

sekali berarti sesudah itu mati

I could make love with you until the mood decides to never glow again.

When one has walked a long way to reach the turning in the path that discloses an anticipated view, and that view appears, there is always a vibration of the landscape. It is repeated in the walker’s body. The harmony of the two presences, like two strings in tune, each feeding off the vibration of the other, is like an endless relaunch. Eternal Recurrence is the unfolding in a continuous circle of the repetition of those two affirmations, the circular transformation of the vibration of the presences. The walker’s immobility facing that of the landscape … it is the very intensity of that co-presence that gives birth to an indefinite circularity of exchanges: I have always been here, tomorrow, contemplating this landscape.

But just a vibration among the trees and stones, on the paths. Walking to breathe in the landscape. Every step an inspiration born to die immediately, well beyond the oeuvre. I like to walk at my ease, and to stop when I like. A wandering life is what I want. To walk through a beautiful country in fine weather, without being obliged to hurry, and with a pleasant prospect at the end, is of all kinds of life the one most suited to my taste.

At the same time shall men hope, but nothing obtain: they shall labor, but their ways shall not prosper.

Forget scientists. The next space launch we should send up painters, poets and musicians. I’d be more interested in what they discover than anything that takes place in a test tube.

Choose wisely From those who start A fire in your heart. Some may burn you to shreds,While you were looking for warmth.

How do I feel today? I feel as unfit as an unfiddle,And it is the result of a certain turbulence in the mind and an uncertain burbulence in the middle.What was it, anyway, that angry thing that flew at me?I am unused to banshees crying Boo at me.Your wife can’t be a banshee—Or can she?

Here the frailest leaves of me and yet my strongest lasting, Here I shade and hide my thoughts, I myself do not expose them, And yet they expose me more than all my other poems

Develop distinct habits of wreaking havoc on any stinking thinking addicted to launching mental missiles aimed at sinking your unique magic.

What seems real one moment is fiction the nextand gone out of existence the moment after that.Nostalgia is the greatest enemy of truth,and change our only constancy.

All people are enslaved by something.

the next time you hear someone in a workshop remarking on how good a particular free-verse line or passage sounds, scan it. The odds are that it will fall into a regular metrical pattern.

Where were you then?Who else was there?Saying what?Why will the whole of love come on me suddenly when I am sad and feel you are far away?

Choices! Choices!! Choices!!! I have chosen love over hate.I have chosen faith over fears.I have chosen courage over cowardice.I have chosen strength over weakness.I have chosen positive thinking over negative thoughts.

It pierced through me like the ray of sun through the darknessAnd I was awakened like the dawnIt hit me just as the lightning strikes in the middle of the stormAnd I'm electrified to the boneFIRE IN MEIt rushed through me like the wind in the cold desert nightAnd my heart is chilled by the fire in meThe fire that guides my wayThe fire that keeps my dreams burning