Poetry Quotes - Page 58

What the poet has to say to the torso of the supposed Apollo, however, is more than a note on an excursion to the antiquities collection. The author's point is not that the thing depicts an extinct god who might be of interest to the humanistically educated, but that the god in the stone constitutes a thing-construct that is still on air. We are dealing with a document of how newer message ontology outgrew traditional theologies. Here, being itself is understood as having more power to speak and transmit, and more potent authority, than God, the ruling idol of religions. In modern times, even a God can find himself among the pretty figures that no longer mean anything to us - assuming they do not become openly irksome. The thing filled with being, however, does not cease to speak to us when its moment has come.

For a moment at least, be a smile on someone else’s face.

You don't have to position yourself in front of people to be used by God. You don't have to convince anyone that you are good enough for the voice of God, just be grateful that God chooses who He wills and once He is ready to use you, no devil in hell can stop Him.

We real cool. We Left school. We Lurk late. We Strike straight. We Sing sin. We Thin gin. We Jazz June. We Die soon.

She's the kind of girl who brings you to the moon without you even being aware. The kind of girl you trip in love with, The kind of girl you never forget.

Read for yourselves, read for the sake of your inspiration, for the sweet turmoil in your lovely head. But also read against yourselves, read for questioning and impotence, for despair and erudition, read the dry sardonic remarks of cynical philosophers like Cioran or even Carl Schmitt, read newspapers, read those who despise, dismiss or simply ignore poetry and try to understand why they do it. Read your enemies, read those who reinforce your sense of what's evolving in poetry, and also read those whose darkness or malice or madness or greatness you can't understand because only in this way will you grow, outlive yourself, and become what you are.

Being human means throwing your whole life on the scales of destiny when need be, all the while rejoicing in every sunny day and every beautiful cloud.

You do not have to be good.You do not have to walk on your kneesfor a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.

My thatched hut; the whole sky Is its roof The mountains are its hedge, And it has the sea for a garden. I’m inside with nothing at all, Not even a bag, And yet there are visitors who say “It’s hidden behind a bamboo door” — tMuso Soseki

I heard the breeze whisper your name to the trees. And the flowers giggled smiling at the leaves. I and my loneliness keep talking about you.

Ink runs from the corners of my mouth.There is no happiness like mine.I have been eating poetry.

What is this thing? trading passions for a tiny bit of acceptance.

If an ancient man saw planes two thousand years ago He would've thought they were birds Or angels from another world Or messengers from other planets.

To them, eternal life beginsAnd God Himself shall wipe away all tears.

Know that there is often hidden in us a dormant poet, always young and alive.

When the words have been said and the music has been played, feelingsare the only form of art which will remain to reign.

WONDERLANDIt is a person's unquenchable thirst for wonderThat sets them on their initial quest for truth.The more doors you open, the smaller you become.The more places you see and the more people you meet,The greater your curiosity grows.The greater your curiosity, the more you will wander.The more you wander, the greater the wonder.The more you quench your thirst for wonder,The more you drink from the cup of life.The more you see and experience, the closer to truth you become.The more languages you learn, the more truths you can unravel.And the more countries you travel, the greater your understanding.And the greater your understanding, the less you see differences.And the more knowledge you gain, the wider your perspective,And the wider your perspective, the lesser your ignorance.Hence, the more wisdom you gain, the smaller you feel.And the smaller you feel, the greater you become.The more you see, the more you love --The more you love, the less walls you see.The more doors you are willing to open,The less close-minded you will be.The more open-minded you are,The more open your heart.And the more open your heart,The more you will be able to Send and receive --Truth and TRUEUnconditionalLOVE.

In every sound, the hidden silence sleeps.

A smiling lie is a whirlwind, easy to enter, but hard to escape.

Fare well we call to hearth and hallThough wind may blow and rain may fallWe must away ere break of dayOver the wood and mountain tallTo Rivendell where Elves yet dwellIn glades beneath the misty fellThrough moor and waste we ride in hasteAnd wither then we cannot tellWith foes ahead behind us dreadBeneath the sky shall be our bedUntil at last our toil be spedOur journey done, our errand spedWe must away! We must away!We ride before the break of day!

Mathematicians still don’t understandthe ball our hands made, or howyour electrocuted grandparents made it possiblefor you to light my cigarettes with your eyes.It isn’t as simple as me climbing into the windowto leave six ounces of orange juiceand a doughnut by the bed, or me becomingthe sand you dug your toes in,on the beach, when you wishedto hide them from the sun and the fixed eyesof strangers, and your breath broke in wavesover my earlobe, splashing through my head, spilling outover the opposite lobe, and my first poemsunder your door in the unshaven light of dawn:Your eyes remind me of a brick wallabout to be hammered by a drunkdriver. I’m that driver. All nightI’ve swallowed you in the bar.Once I kissed the scar, stretching its sealedeyelid along your inner arm, driedraining strands of hair, full of pheromones, discoveredall your idiosyncratic passageways, so I’d knowwhere to run when the cops came.Your body is the country I’ll never return to.The man in charge of what crosses my mindwill lose fingernails, for not turning youaway at the border. But at this momentwhen sweat tingles from me, andblame is as meaningless as shooting up a cow with milk,I realise my kisses filled the halls of your bodywith smoke, and the lies camelike a season. Most drunks don’t die in accidentsthey orchestrate, and I swalloweda hand grenade that never stops exploding.

Pity me that the heart is slow to learnWhat the swift mind beholds at every turn.

born born everything is always bornthinking about it try not to

You scour these Chinatowns of the mind, translating themlike sutras Xuan Zhang fetched from India, testing waysreturn might be possible against these homesick inventions, trace the traveller's alien steps across borders, and in between discover how transit has a way of lasting, the way these Chinatowns grew out of not knowing whether to return or to stay, and then became home.

You will be my thunder. I'll be your lightning. Even the heavens will rage with jealousy.

I wear my past around my shoulders as a fine, but worn, cloak. Don't be fooled by my cloak's appearance, I have a three piece underneath.

The tragedy of love is in its ending, the blessing—everything else. No love ever deserves to end.

Everything had become song. The curve of the road beneath the clouds here, and there the strokes of dark earth, the green and the gray, the torn pink of clay and gravel under fingertips. The consonance was above all that of the muffled shadow and grass to the depths of sky, where a flutter of cheerful feathers quivered.In these dreams there are also black walnut trees, and then a forest that opens in a breeze. Nothing. Nothing more than the obstinate sound of wind.

Try to be thoughtful, don't make the poor man say it;see how human he is,he has children of his own,it is your job t

...if you do not even understand what words say,how can you expect to pass judgementon what words conceal?

Terence, this is stupid stuff:You eat your victuals fast enough;There can't be much amiss, 'tis clear,To see the rate you drink your beer.

forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit.and perhaps it will be pleasing to have remembered these things one day

When it came to her, I became an indomitable warrior. My muscles became her shield and my lungs aided her breath. She would not fall with me by her side, for I was the wings that sprouted from her back. No one would cross her without first having to survive my wrath.

I am that last, thatfinal thing, the bodyin a white sheet listening,

UPYou wake up filled with dread.There seems no reason for it.Morning light sifts through the window,there is birdsong,you can't get out of bed.It's something about the crumpled sheetshanging over the edge like junglefoliage, the terry slippers gapingtheir dark pink mouths for your feet,the unseen breakfast--some of itin the refrigerator you do not dareto open--you will not dare to eat.What prevents you? The future. The future tense,immense as outer space.You could get lost there.No. Nothing so simple. The past, its densityand drowned events pressing you down,like sea water, like gelatinfilling your lungs instead of air.Forget all that and let's get up.Try moving your arm.Try moving your head.Pretend the house is on fireand you must run or burn.No, that one's useless.It's never worked before.Where is it coming form, this echo,this huge No that surrounds you,silent as the folds of the yellowcurtains, mute as the cheerfulMexican bowl with its cargoof mummified flowers?(You chose the colours of the sun,not the dried neutrals of shadow.God knows you've tried.)Now here's a good one:you're lying on your deathbed.You have one hour to live.Who is it, exactly, you have neededall these years to forgive?

Maybe you could be mine / or maybe we’ll be entwined / aimless in this sexless foreplay.

O Lord that bear rule, even we all are full of impiety. And for our sakes peradventure it is that the floors of the righteous are not filled, because of the sins of them that dwell upon the earth.

Dividing earth and skyis not the right wayto think about this wholeness.It only allows one to liveat a more precise address--were I to be searched forI'd be found much faster.My distinguishing marksare rapture and despair.From 'Sky', in the collection 'Miracle Fair

I never needed a Man. I needed a Viking. I needed someone who wasn't afraid of my strengths, or of my needs. I chose wrong... in the past. I thought I had to find someone who could put up with my hunger for life. But I was so damn wrong. I needed a Viking. I needed someone who would admire all the things about me that tepid men were intimidated by.

there isn't enough of anythingas long as we live. But at intervalsa sweetness appears and, given a chanceprevails.

Tea is just an excuse.i am drinking this sunset, this evening.and you.

O I never thought that joys would run away from boys,Or that boys would change their minds and forsake such summer joys;But alack I never dreamed that the world had other toys

She had just enough madness to make her interesting

Vandals listen only when others are stronger.If vandals are equal or strongerTheir word is the last word.

His fangs sank deep into my heart. He made me his. He possessed me like a demon and loved me like his life depended on it.

To be loved is all I need, And whom I love, I love indeed.

Every word on every page, represents a love that captured this heart... fully, and never set it free.

She lends her pen,to thoughts of him,that flow from it,in her solitary.For she is his poet,And he is her poetry.

The ocean cradles the bloodied moon in its aquatic arms like a mother holds her crying babe.

And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.

Writing on architecture is not like history or poetry.

A Paradise for you and meTrust, true love to guide us freeLoneliness shall not fill the dayI will forever be with youOur Love is beautiful like the sunshine lighting the wayYour gentle feelYour caring handsThere is no doubt in your soulNo eerie place in your heart to express this feelingOur compassion flows in the waves just to save and brighten my day My heart has no hoes Awaiting your paceto touch this placeOur love, withstanding all odds Diminishing hate, in our thoughts There is no place I rather be til eternity... Than in your soul, life and in your dreams... I am here to stay with you forever.

the glory of the protagonist is always paid for by a lot of secondary characters

The erotic drive is the great energy that moves through all evolution.What about love? Where does that fit in?Love's simply the handmaiden of the great energy, and an excuse to write suspect poetry.

Registration Day' by Gavin Gunhold (1899— ) Toronto Review of Poetry, 1947On registration day at taxidermy schoolI distinctly saw the eyes of the stuffed mooseMove.

Sometimes what not to do is more important than what to do. Sometimes when you are in crisis, when frustration are high or when you are under pressure, what you don't do is more important than what you do. Don't be afraid. ....

Until we say the truth, there can be no tenderness.As long as there is desire, we will not be safe

I don't like a kind of workshop that is about editing--I don't want to sit there and be an editor. I don't want to tell someone how to "fix" a poem.

Why can't we breathe now, In this moment we have breath?

sometimes i wake upin the middleof the nightand findpoetry splatteredall over my bed.