Poetry Quotes - Page 25

Almighty Freedom! give my venturous songThe force, the charm that to thy voice belong;Tis thine to shape my course, to light my way,To nerve my country with the patriot lay,To teach all men where all their interest lies,How rulers may be just and nations wise:Strong in thy strength I bend no suppliant knee,Invoke no miracle, no Muse but thee.

Poetry is the impish attempt to paint the colour of the wind.

He spoke in polished honesty free of liar's filth. He said the hardest words with an unshakable voice, a wide smile, with fear and doubt freezing over his core. The truth was the best route, but the truth could always be costly... another truth. A sad truth.

I don't think all writers are sad, she said.I think it's the other way around—all sad people write.

Writing the poems, I came to think that regarding is a form of love, but the regarding is not necessarily accurate. In the poems, people are always misperceiving one another. But misperceptions are a part of being alive to others. You don’t need truth or beauty. All you do is perceive. That’s all you need to have loved and lived fully.

If breath is as close as I can get,tomorrow, I’ll become the windjust to be with you again.

say the words out loud / yes / the ones that make your heart pinch / say them out loud

From the time I began to read, as a child, I loved to feel their heft in my hand and the warm spot caused by their intimate weight in my lap; I loved the crisp whisper of a page turning, the musky odor of old paper and the sharp inky whiff of new pages. Leather bindings sent me into ecstasy. I even loved to gaze at a closed book and daydream about the possibilities inside.

someone's senta loving notein lines of returning geeseand as the moon fillsmy western chamberas petals danceover the flowing streamagain I think of youthe two of usliving a sadnessaparta hurt that can't be removedyet when my gaze comes downmy heart stays up

Starlight encased in flesh. Fire burning in so much water. Poetry living in hard spaces. oh, how the body loves

We are not concerned with the very poor. They are unthinkable, and only to be approached by the statistician or the poet.

Otter! Otter! Otter!Don’t lead cows to slaughter!I love you, and I knowI should’ve told you soon-aBut you didn’t buy the dolphin-safe tuna!

To have been where you have beenAnd to still have joy,Dazzling in your heart,Now there’s a thing to make the whole world smile.

A book,a book fullof human touches,of shirts,a bookwithout loneliness, with menand tools,a bookis victory.

She seems so cool, so focused, so quiet, yet her eyes remain fixed upon the horizon. You think you know all there is to know about her immediately upon meeting her, but everything you think you know is wrong. Passion flows through her like a river of blood. She only looked away for a moment, and the mask slipped, and you fell. All your tomorrows start here.

Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.

imagine the desertmothers, with hair tangledtighter than their theologyand breasts that flowed milkand mystic wisdom. theyknew how to draw the singingsigils in the sand, how to digrough and bitten fingersinto desiccated dirt for waterto wet the lips of their young.women of hips and heft, wholearned how to burnbeneath the wild and searingsun, who made loud loveagainst the star-flecked threatof night, who knew that strengthis not always a matter of muscle.imagine your ancestresses,the prophetesses of the aridlands, before these starchedtraditions and pews too hardto pray from, who bled trueritual and birthed their own fiercesouls at creation's crowning --

O to be self-balanced for contingencies, to confront night, storms, hunger, ridicule, accidents, rebuffs, as the trees and animals do.

Some men are born to be good some born to be badAs for me I only came with just a pen ‘n’ a pad.

…And my heart openedlike a flower under sky,its petals of desire,its stamens of dreams…

If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself, tell yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches; for to the creator there is no poverty and no poor indifferent place.

Only God and His angels can hear our hearts duet.

Justice is about harmony... revenge is about you making yourself feel better.

Even when poetry has a meaning, as it usually has, it may be inadvisable to draw it out. Perfect understanding will sometimes almost extinguish pleasure.

Those things that take my breath away become the ocean-complex and deep-and I'm prone to drowning in beautiful things. Like you.

grief is a housewhere the chairshave forgotten how to hold usthe mirrors how to reflect usthe walls how to contain usgrief is a house that disappearseach time someone knocks at the dooror rings the bella house that blows into the airat the slightest gustthat buries itself deep in the groundwhile everyone is sleepinggrief is a house where no one can protect youwhere the younger sisterwill grow older than the older onewhere the doorsno longer let you inor out

there’s nothing todiscussthere’s nothing torememberthere’s nothing toforgetit’s sadand it’s notsadseems themost sensiblethinga person can doissitwith drink inhandas the wallswavetheir goodbyesmilesone comes throughit allwith a certain amount ofefficiency andbraverythenleavessome acceptthe possibility ofGodto help themgetthroughotherstake itstaight onand to theseI drink tonight.

Though I love your company, your instructions are wasted her. I will always choose the woman who caries me off, I will always sit with the family of loneliness.

Love is poetry plus biology.

I write, write and write but I can't find words that define what I feel inside.

Virtually everyone needs motivation of some sort, but when you are in love - that is motivation enough, it turns many into poets and painters, it spurs the creativity in you.

Be careful with those promises who whisper while wooing and loving someone. There are those that take them to heart, and some who take them to soul.

I will meet you on the nape of your neck one day, on the surface of intention, word becoming act.We will breathe into each other the high mountain tales, where the snows come from, where the waters begin.”-In the yellow time of pollen

No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.The teacher who walks in the shadow of the temple, among his followers, gives not of his wisdom but rather of his faith and his lovingness.If he is indeed wise he does not bid you enter the house of his wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind.

Poetry is alive because it is a medium of vision and experience. It is not necessarily comfortable.It is not necessarily safe.

The emmet's inch and eagle's mileMake lame philosophy to smile.He who doubts from what he seesWill ne'er believe, do what you please.- "Auguries of Innocence

It’s funny, for all it took was a broken heart and that alone was enough, enough for her to do everything she ever dreamed of.

The arts that have escaped [uniformity] best are the arts in which the public take no interest. Poetry is an instance of what I mean. We have been able to have fine poetry in England because the public do not read it, and consequently do not influence it.

Before Marriage opposite attracts, after marriage opposite attacks☺. Just telling you the truth.

Let your poem be kept nine years.

Brushing a girl’s hair behind her earonce a daywill solve more problemsthan all thosetherapists and drugs.

In the days of Prismatic Colornot in the days of Adam and Eve, but when Adam was alone; when there was no smoke and color was fine, not with the refinement of early civilization art, but because of its originality; with nothing to modify it but the mist that went up, obliqueness was a variation of the perpendicular, plain to see and to account for: it is no longer that; nor did the blue-red-yellow band of incandescence that was color keep its stripe

A writer is not so much someone who has something to say as he is someone who has found a process that will bring about new things he would not have thought of if he had not started to say them.

Night after night on starry wingsNight lovers soared so highMiles apart, across the oceansTheir love forgot to sighIn heavenly flight’s timelessnessThat highest height treasuredInto the deepest of all bluesTheir depth of love measured.From the poem 'The Ballad of Night Lovers

I am always trying to 'preserve' things by getting other people to read what I have written, and feel what I felt.

Tom Dancer’s gift of a whitebark pine coneYou never knowtWhat opportunityttIs going to travel to you,tttOr through you.Once a friend gave metA small pine cone-ttOne of a fewtttHe found in the scatOf a grizzlytIn Utah maybe,ttOr Wyoming.tttI took it homeAnd did what I supposedtHe was sure I would do-ttI ate it,tt ThinkingHow it had traveled tThrough that roughttAnd holy body.tttIt was crisp and sweet.It was almost a prayertWithout words.ttMy gratitude, Tom Dancer, tttFor this gift of the worldtttI adore so muchttt And want to belong to.ttttAnd thank you too, great bear

Every poet... finds himself born in the midst of prose. He has to struggle from the littleness and obstruction of an actual world into the freedom and infinitude of an ideal.

We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

if youdon't want toend up insomeone else'spoem,then maybeyou shouldstarttreatingpeoplebetterfor achange.- an unapologetic poet.

If I am more alive because love burns and chars me,as a fire, given wood or wind, feels new elation,it's that he who lays me low is my salvation,and invigorates the more, the more he scars me.

I like the posture, but not the yoga. I like the inebriated morning, but not the opium. I like the flower but not the garden, the moment but not the dream. Quiet, my love. Be still. I am sleeping.

Mind's acres are forever green: Oh, IShall keep perpetual summer here; I shallRefuse to let one startled swallow die,Or, from the copper beeches, one leaf fall.

Deceit dispels the boredom of the Absolute.

Caution not spirit, let it roam wild; for in that natural state dance embraces divine frequency.

So you find Miss Mercer beautiful?”The buzzing in Spencer’s head formed the words, “’She walks in beauty like the night/Of cloudless climes and starry skies.’”“My God, now you’re quoting poetry.”Had he said that aloud? Bloody hell. Spencer brandished his empty mug at his brother. “I always quote verse when I’m foxed.”“You must be very foxed to quote that idiot Byron. Or very impressed by Miss Mercer’s looks.

The I you know isn’t me, you said, truthtelling liarMy roots are not my chainsAnd I to you:   Whose hands have grownthrough mine?   Owl-voiced I cried then:   Who?But yours was the one, the only eye assumedDid we turn each other into liars?holding hands with each others’ chains?

Where had I heard this wind beforeChange like this to a deeper roar?What would it take my standing there for,Holding open a restive door,Looking down hill to a frothy shore?Summer was past and day was past.Somber clouds in the west were massed.Out in the porch's sagging floor,leaves got up in a coil and hissed,Blindly struck at my knee and missed.Something sinister in the toneTold me my secret must be known:Word I was in the house aloneSomehow must have gotten abroad,Word I was in my life alone,Word I had no one left but God.

Cradle of SolitudeFor we know not why our tribulationsare given as suchour fragile formscreated from the dust...

one day, when tenderness has become the single rule of the morning,/ I will wake in your arms. perhaps your skin will be overly gorgeous./ and the light will include the impossible understanding of love.

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,I have forgotten, and what arms have lainUnder my head till morning, but the rainIs full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sighUpon the glass and listen for reply,And in my heart there stirs a quiet painFor unremembered lads that not againWill turn to me at midnight with a cry.Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree,Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:I cannot say what loves have come and gone,I only know that summer sang in meA little while, that in me sings no more.