Quotes Tagged "poetry"

Man! Thou pendulum betwixt a smile and tear.

Snub end of a dismal year, deep in the dwarf orchard, The sky with its undercoat of blackwash and point stars, I stand in the dark and answer to My life, this shirt I want to take off, which is on fire . . .

Our Beasts and our Thieves and our Chattels Have weight for good or for ill; But the Poor are only His image, His presence, His word, His will; - And so Lazarus lies at our doorstep And Dives neglects him still.

... Up telephone poles, Which rear, half out of leavage As though they would shriek Like things smothered by their own Green, mindless, unkillable ghosts. In Georgia, the legend says That you must close your windows At night to keep it out of the house The glass is tinged with green, even so, As the tendrils crawl over the fields. The night the Kudzu has Your pasture, you sleep like the dead. Silence has grown oriental And you cannot step upon the ground... ALL: Kudzu by James Dickey

I hear nothing but the hustle and bustle of the city. Cars with flashing lights zip past me. People talk, some loud, some quiet. I whisper to myself. “This is what it’s like to go unnoticed.” I take in a deep breath and inhale the freezing air. It smells like ice here. Ice and cigarettes.

From the first cup of coffee in the morning to playing in the sheets at night, I choose you to be by my side.

The artistic reward for refuting the received national tradition is liberation. The price is homelessness. Interior exile.

I am stuck in traffic in a taxicab which is typical and not just of modern life

Poetry is what he turns to these days, finding in its fragmentation the proper echo of the disintegrating world.

Silence is a cage. These words are my keys.

On the day you couldn't hold yourself together anymore, you called for me, voice crackling like two sets of knuckles before an altercation. I found you, looking like a damaged wine glass. I hugged your shatter, I cut all of my fingers trying to jigsaw puzzle you back together. When it was over, you looked at the stains on the carpet and blamed me for making a mess.

It's plain to see for those who will to see from within and how common and strange things really seem to be when you start to change your planes of perception.As change in the mind persist, so shall change in thoughts, words, and deeds assist.

And I am so alone And I am alone here With the idea of ghosts And the idea of humanity, which is a cruel idea

My hunger, too, has both hard and soft parts.

A lonely face aglow on high. You mean the moon. A flower, red, has caught his eye. A rose in bloom. He cannot touch her, though he try. In darkness glints the tears he cries. I see mere stars; you boldly lie. Nay, poetry to draw your sigh. I am immune.

After the final no there comes a yes. And on that yes the future world depends. No was the night. Yes is this present sun.

Speak, roofless Nature, your instinctive words; And let me learn your secret from the sky, Following a flock of steadfast-journeying birds In lone remote migration beating by. December stillness, crossed by twilight roads, Teach me to travel far and bear my loads.

Silence is a cage. These words are my wings.

SONG OF SUNSET ON THE RIVER A strip of water's spread in the setting sun, Half the river's emerald, half is red. I love the third night of the ninth month, The dew is like pearl; the moon like a bow.

And we who loved the world must learn the language of absence: days foreshortened, empty rooms, the irrevocable distance between the goodbye and the letting go.