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quoteQuotes About Poetry

Quotes tagged as "poetry" (showing 1,441-1,470 of 3,000)Jeffrey McDaniel�I used to think love was two people suckingon the same straw to see whose thirst was stronger,

but then I whiffed the crushed walnuts of your nape,traced jackals in the snow-covered tombstones of your teeth.

I used to think love was a non-stop saxophone soloin the lungs, till I hung with you like a pair of sneakers

from a phone line, and you promised to always smellthe rose in my kerosene. I used to think love was terminal

pelvic ballet, till you let me jog beside while you pedaledall over hell on the menstrual bicycle, your tongue

ripping through my prairie like a tornado of paper cuts.I used to think love was an old man smashing a mirror

over his knee, till you helped me carry the barbellof my spirit back up the stairs after my car pirouetted

in the desert. You are my history book. I used to not believein fairy tales till I played the dunce in sheep�s clothing

and felt how perfectly your foot fit in the glass slipperof my ass. But then duty wrapped its phone cord

around my ankle and yanked me across the continent.

And now there are three thousand miles between the u

and s in esophagus. And being without you is like standingat a cement-filled wall with a roll of Yugoslavian nickels

and making a wish. Some days I miss you so muchI�d jump off the roof of your office building

just to catch a glimpse of you on the way down. I wishwe could trade left eyeballs, so we could always see

what the other sees. But you�re here, I�m there,and we have only words, a nightly phone call - one chance

to mix feelings into syllables and pour into the receiver,hope they don�t disassemble in that calculus of wire.

And lately - with this whole war thing - the language machinesupporting it - I feel betrayed by the alphabet, like they�re

injecting strychnine into my vowels, infecting my consonants,naming attack helicopters after shattered Indian tribes:

Apache, Blackhawk; and West Bank colonizers are settlers,so Sharon is Davey Crockett, and Arafat: Geronimo,

and it�s the Wild West all over again. And I imagine Picassolooking in a mirror, decorating his face in war paint,

washing his brushes in venom. And I think of Jeninin all that rubble, and I feel like a Cyclops with two eyes,

like an anorexic with three mouths, like a scuba diverin quicksand, like a shark with plastic vampire teeth,

like I�m the executioner�s fingernail trying to reasonwith the hand. And I don�t know how to speak love

when the heart is a busted cup filling with spit and paste,and the only sexual fantasy I have is busting

into the Pentagon with a bazooka-sized pen and blowingopen the minds of generals. And I comfort myself

with the thought that we�ll name our first child Jenin,and her middle name will be Terezin, and we�ll teach her

how to glow in the dark, and how to swallow firecrackers,and to never neglect the first straw; because no one

ever talks about the first straw, it�s always the last strawthat gets all the attention, but by then it�s way too late.� ? Jeffrey McDanieltags: poetry, the-first-straw 31 likes LikeAnne Sexton�Those moments before a poem comes, when the heightened awareness comes over you, and you realize a poem is buried there somewhere, you prepare yourself. I run around, you know, kind of skipping around the house, marvelous elation. It�s as though I could fly.� ? Anne Sexton

tags: poetry, writing 23 likes Like????? ?????�??????????? ?????? ??????� ? ????? ?????, my words my dreams ?????? ??????tags: micropoetry, poetry 21 likes LikeEdmond Rostand�...But...to sing,to dream, to smile, to walk, to be alone, be free,with a voice that stirs and an eye that still can see!To cock your hat to one side, when you pleaseat a yes, a no, to fight, or- make poetry!To work without a thought of fame or fortune,on that journey, that you dream of, to the moon!Never to write a line that's not your own...� ? Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergeractags: inspirational, poetry, writers-quotes 19 likes LikeVincent Starrett�Here dwell together still two men of note/ Who never lived and so can never die:/ How very near they seem, yet how remote/ That age before the world went all awry./ But still the game�s afoot for those with ears/ Attuned to catch the distant view-halloo:/ England is England yet, for all our fears�/ Only those things the heart believes are true./ A yellow fog swirls past the window-pane/ As night descends upon this fabled street:/ A lonely hansom splashes through the rain,/ The ghostly gas lamps fail at twenty feet./ Here, though the world explode, these two survive,/ And it is always eighteen ninety-five.� ? Vincent Starretttags: 221b, fangirling, history, holmes, love, poetry, sherlock, watson 19 likes LikeTed Kooser�a happy birthday

this evening, I sat by an open windowand read till the light was gone and the bookwas no more than a part of the darkness.I could easily have switched on a lamp,but I wanted to ride the day down into night,to sit alone, and smooth the unreadable pagewith the pale gray ghost of my hand� ? Ted Koosertags: birthday, poetry, reading 17 likes LikeDante Alighieri�Those ancients who in poetry presented the golden age, who sang its happy state,perhaps, in their Parnassus, dreamt this place.Here, mankind's root was innocent; and herewere every fruit and never-ending spring; these streams--the nectar of which poets sing.� ? Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedytags: garden-of-eden, poetry 16 likes LikeEdna St. Vincent Millay�The first rose on my rose-treeBudded, bloomed, and shattered,During sad days when to meNothing mattered.

Grief or grief has drained me clean;

Still it seems a pityNo one saw,�it must have beenVery pretty.� ? Edna St. Vincent Millay, The Selected Poetrytags: grief, poetry 14 likes LikeJeffrey McDaniel�Reminiscing in the drizzle of Portland, I notice the ring that�s landed on your finger, a massiveinsect of glitter, a chandelier shining at the end

of a long tunnel. Thirteen years ago, you hid the hurtin your voice under a blanket and said there�s two kindsof women�those you write poems about

and those you don�t. It�s true. I never brought youa bouquet of sonnets, or served you haiku in bed.My idea of courtship was tapping Jane�s Addiction

lyrics in Morse code on your window at three A.M., whiskey doing push-ups on my breath. But I workedwithin the confines of my character, cast

as the bad boy in your life, the Magellanof your dark side. We don�t have a past so muchas a bunch of electricity and liquor, power

never put to good use. What we had togethermakes it sound like a virus, as if we caughtone another like colds, and desire was merely

a symptom that could be treated with soupand lots of sex. Gliding beside you now, I feel like the Benjamin Franklin of monogamy,

as if I invented it, but I�m still not immuneto your waterfall scent, still haven�t developedantibodies for your smile. I don�t know how long

regret existed before humans stuck a word on it.I don�t know how many paper towels it would taketo wipe up the Pacific Ocean, or why the light

of a candle being blown out travels fasterthan the luminescence of one that�s just been lit, but I do know that all our huffing and puffing

into each other�s ears�as if the brain was a trickbirthday candle�didn�t make the silenceany easier to navigate. I�m sorry all the kisses

I scrawled on your neck were writtenin disappearing ink. Sometimes I thought of youso hard one of your legs would pop out

of my ear hole, and when I was sleeping, you�d pressyour face against the porthole of my submarine.I�m sorry this poem has taken thirteen years

to reach you. I wish that just once, instead of skiddingoff the shoulder blade�s precipice and joyriding

over flesh, we�d put our hands away like chocolate

to be saved for later, and deciphered the calligraphyof each other�s eyelashes, translated a paragraphfrom the volumes of what couldn�t be said.� ? Jeffrey McDanieltags: poetry 14 likes LikeDylan Thomas�This poem has been called obscure. I refuse to believe that it is obscurer than pity, violence, or suffering. But being a poem, not a lifetime, it is more compressed.� ? Dylan Thomastags: obscurity, pain, poetry, suffering 13 likes LikeTed Hughes�...imagine what you are writing about. See it and live it. Do not think it up laboriously, as if you were working out mental arithmetic. Just look at it, touch it, smell it, listen to it, turn yourself into it. When you do this, the words look after themselves, like magic.� ? Ted Hughes, Poetry in the Making: An Anthologytags: poem, poetry, writing 12 likes LikeMark Strand�Those hours given over to basking in the glow of an imaginedfuture, of being carried away in streams of promise by a love ora passion so strong that one felt altered forever and convincedthat even the smallest particle of the surrounding world wascharged with purpose of impossible grandeur; ah, yes, andone would look up into the trees and be thrilled by the wind-loosened river of pale, gold foliage cascading down and by thehigh, melodious singing of countless birds; those moments, somany and so long ago, still come back, but briefly, like firefliesin the perfumed heat of summer night.� ? Mark Strand, Almost Invisible: Poemstags: life, nostalgia, poetry, regret 11 likes LikeJeffrey McDaniel�If you heard your lover scream in the next roomand you ran in and saw his pinkie on the floor, in a small puddle of blood.

You wouldn't rush to the pinkie and say, 'Darling, are you OK? '

No, you'd wrap your arms around his shoulders and worry about the pinkie later.

The same holds true if you heard the scream, ran in and saw his hand or -god forbid- his whole arm.

But suppose you hear your lover scream in the next room, and you run in and his head is on the floor next to his body.

Which do you rush to and comfort first?� ? Jeffrey McDanieltags: death, hunting-for-cherubs, poetry 11 likes Like�You cannot devote your life to an abstraction. Indeed, life shatters all abstractions in one way or another, including words such as "faith" or "belief". If God is not in the very fabric of existence for you, if you do not find Him (or miss Him!) in the details of your daily life, then religion is just one more way to commit spiritual suicide.� ? Christian Wiman, Ambition and Survival: Becoming a Poettags: christianity, poetry, religion 11 likes LikeAlexandra Lanc

�My heart is strong, I will not fail, I won't be wronged, I will prevail.� ? Alexandra Lanc, Lyrics of the Hearttags: inspirational, lyrics-of-the-heart, novellas, poetry, real-life, real-life-struggle, ya-fiction 11 likes Like??? ????? ????�?? ????? ?? ????? ?? ??????? ???? ??? ??????????? ??? ???? ?? ??????? ????? ??????? ??? ????? ???? ?? ????????? ?? ??????/ ?????? ??? ???? ????� ? ??? ????? ????, ?????? ??????tags: poetry 11 likes LikeJacques Prévert�Remember BarbaraIt rained all day on Brest that dayAnd you walked smilingFlushed enraptured streaming-wetIn the rainRemember BarbaraIt rained all day on Brest that dayAnd I ran into you in Siam StreetYou were smilingAnd I smiled tooRemember BarbaraYou whom I didn't knowYou who didn't know meRememberRemember that day stillDon't forgetA man was taking cover on a porchAnd he cried your nameBarbaraAnd you ran to him in the rainStreaming-wet enraptured flushedAnd you threw yourself in his armsRemember that BarbaraAnd don't be mad if I speak familiarlyI speak familiarly to everyone I loveEven if I've seen them only onceI speak familiarly to all who are in loveEven if I don't know themRemember BarbaraDon't forgetThat good and happy rainOn your happy faceOn that happy townThat rain upon the seaUpon the arsenalUpon the Ushant boatOh BarbaraWhat shitstupidity the warNow what's become of youUnder this iron rainOf fire and steel and bloodAnd he who held you in his armsAmorouslyIs he dead and gone or still so much alive

Oh BarbaraIt's rained all day on Brest todayAs it was raining beforeBut it isn't the same anymoreAnd everything is wreckedIt's a rain of mourning terrible and desolateNor is it still a stormOf iron and steel and bloodBut simply cloudsThat die like dogsDogs that disappearIn the downpour drowning BrestAnd float away to rotA long way offA long long way from BrestOf which there's nothing left.� ? Jacques Préverttags: barbara, english, jacques, poetry, prevert 10 likes LikeJeffrey McDaniel�We didn�t deny the obvious,but we didn�t entirely accept it either.I mean, we said hello to it each morningin the foyer. We patted its little headas it made a mess in the backyard,but we never nurtured it. Many nights the obvious showed upat our bedroom door, in its pajamas,unable to sleep, in need of a hug,and we just stared at it like an Armenian,or even worse� hid beneath the coversand pretended not to hear its tiny sobs.� ? Jeffrey McDanieltags: poetry 10 likes LikeJeanette Winterson�I wasn�t reading poetry because my aim was to work my way through English Literature in Prose A�Z.

But this was different.

I read [in, Murder in the Cathedral by T.S. Eliot]: This is one moment, / But know that another / Shall pierce you with a sudden painful joy.

I started to cry.

(�)The unfamiliar and beautiful play made things bearable that day, and the things it made bearable were another failed family�the first one was not my fault, but all adopted children blame themselves. The second failure was definitely my fault.

I was confused about sex and sexuality, and upset about the straightforward practical problems of where to live, what to eat, and how to do my A levels.

I had no one to help me, but the T.S. Eliot helped me.

So when people say that poetry is a luxury, or an option, or for the educated middle classes, or that it shouldn�t be read at school because it is irrelevant, or any of the strange and stupid things that are said about poetry and its place in our lives, I suspect that the people doing the saying have had things pretty easy. A tough life needs a tough language�and that is what poetry is. That is what literature offers�a language powerful enough to say how it is.

It isn�t a hiding place. It is a finding place.� ? Jeanette Winterson, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?tags: books, poetry, power-of-words, reading 9 likes LikeAdam Zagajewski�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.� ? Adam Zagajewski, A Defense of Ardor: Essaystags: literature, poetry, reading 9 likes LikeAnne Carson�Prowling the meanings of a word, prowling the history of a person, no use expecting a flood of light. Human words have no main switch. But all those little kidnaps in the dark. And then the luminous, big, shivering, discandied, unrepentant, barking web of them that hangs in your mind when you turn back to the page you were trying to translate...� ? Anne Carson, Noxtags: poetry, translation, words 9 likes LikeJeffrey McDaniel�I surrendered my identity in your eyes.

Now I'm just like everybody else, and it's so funny,

the way monogamy is funny, the waysomeone falling down in the street is funny.

I entered a revolving door and emergedas a human being. When you think of meis my face electronically blurred?

I remember your collarbone, forming the tiniestsatellite dish in the universe, your smileas the place where parallel lines inevitably crossed.

Now dinosaurs freeze to death on your shoulder.

I remember your eyes: fifty attack dogs on a single leash, how I once held the soft audience of your hand.

I've been ignored by prettier women than you,

but none who carried the heavy pitchers of silenceso far, without spilling a drop.� ? Jeffrey McDanieltags: poetry 8 likes LikeMahmoud Darwish�I see what I want of Love... I see horses making the meadow dance, fifty guitars sighing, and a swarm of bees suckling the wild berries, and I close my eyes until I see our shadow behind this dispossessed place...

I see what I want of people: their desire to long for anything, their lateness in getting to work and their hurry to return to their folk... and their need to say: Good Morning...� ? Mahmoud Darwish, If I Were Another: Poemstags: poetry, poetry-quotes 8 likes Like

Raegan Butcher�anyone who has no feelings for animals has a dead heart.� ? Raegan Butcher, Rusty String Quartettags: animals-love, poems, poetry, prison 7 likes Like??? ????? ????�??????? ????? ??????? ??????"????? ??? ?????? ????? ?? ??????????????????? ???????� ? ??? ????? ????, ?????? ??????tags: poetry 7 likes LikeKevin Walker�Hate flows from a broken spirit.� ? Kevin Walker, These Moments Pass: Poemstags: hate, life, poetry 6 likes Like��be awake to the Life that is loving you andsing your prayer, laugh your prayer, dance your prayer, runand weep and sweat your prayer,sleep your prayer, eat your prayer, paint, sculpt, hammer, and read your prayer, sweep, dig, rake, drive and hoe your prayer,garden and farm and build and clean your prayer,wash, iron, vacuum, sew, embroider and pickle your prayer,compute, touch, bend and fold but never deleteor mutilate your prayer.

Learn and play your prayer, work and rest your prayer,fast and feast your prayer, argue, talk, whisper, listen and shout your prayer,groan and moan and spit and sneeze your prayer,swim and hunt and cook your prayer,digest and become your prayer,release and recover your prayer,breathe your prayer, be your prayer� ? Alla Renee Bozarthtags: poetry, prayer, praying, spirituality 4 likes LikeWallace Stevens�A poem is a meteor.� ? Wallace Stevenstags: poem, poetry, poets, wallace-stevens 4 likes LikeKevin Walker�No matter the disappointment, you simply cannot divorce your favorite team.� ? Kevin Walker, These Moments Pass: Poemstags: poetry, sports, team 4 likes LikeOscar Wilde�The mimicry of passion is the most intolerable of all poses.� ? Oscar Wilde, Reviewstags: affectations, algernon-charles-swinburne, literary-criticism, mimicry, passion, poetry, poseurs, pretension 3 likes Like« previous 1 2 � 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 � 99 100 next »All Quotes | My Quotes | Add A Quote

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