poetry

"This is the Hour of Lead – Remembered, if outlived, As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow – First – Chill – then Stupor – then the letting go –"

"Gather the stars if you wish it soGather the songs and keep them.Gather the faces of women.Gather for keeping years and years.And then...Loosen your hands, let go and say good-bye.Let the stars and songs go.Let the faces and years go.Loosen your hands and say good-bye."

"In the DesertIn the desert I saw a creature, naked, bestial, Who, squatting upon the ground, Held his heart in his hands, And ate of it. I said, “Is it good, friend?” “It is bitter—bitter,” he answered; “But I like it “Because it is bitter, “And because it is my heart."

"I am obnoxious to each carping tongue/ Who says my hand a needle better fits./ A poet's pen all scorn I should thus wrong/ For such despite they cast on female wits;/ If what I do prove well, it won't advance,/ They'll say it's stolen, or else, it was by chance."

"I wanted the past to go away, I wantedto leave it, like another country; I wantedmy life to close, and openlike a hinge, like a wing, like the part of the songwhere it fallsdown over the rocks: an explosion, a discovery;I wantedto hurry into the work of my life; I wanted to know,whoever I was, I wasalivefor a little while."

"And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door; And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming, And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor:And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor Shall be lifted — nevermore!"

"There is nothing at all that can be talked about adequately, and the whole art of poetry is to say what can't be said."

"I sip my coffee like I fall in love—alone in a field of flowers, writing poetry for the mailman, who delivers love letters, but never gets any."

"You know how this is:if I lookat the crystal moon, at the red branchof the slow autumn at my window,if I touchnear the firethe impalpable ashor the wrinkled body of the log,everything carries me to you,as if everything that exists,aromas, light, metals,were little boatsthat sailtoward those isles of yours that wait for me."

"at first when the rain fell from the sky so wide and deepit smelled like sage, my favorite smellI went up on the plateau to watch it cometo see the gifts it always broughtbut this rain changed from blue to black and leftnothing."

"I think we are in rats’ alley Where the dead men lost their bones."

"We sit and talk,quietly, with long lapses of silenceand I am aware of the streamthat has no language, coursingbeneath the quiet heaven ofyour eyeswhich has no speech"

"The lamb misused breeds public strifeAnd yet forgives the butcher's knife."

"For books are more than books, they are the lifeThe very heart and core of ages past,The reason why men lived and worked and died,The essence and quintessence of their lives."

"The stars are forth, the moon above the topsOf the snow-shining mountains.—Beautiful!I linger yet with Nature, for the nightHath been to me a more familiar faceThan that of man; and in her starry shadeOf dim and solitary loveliness,I learn'd the language of another world."

"Poetic inspiration is all around us, and it surrounds us like silent music that makes our hearts vibrate. Any time you give or receive love, you are a part of a living poem."

"I'm not saying that everything is survivable. Just that everything except the last thing is."

"WisdomWhen I have ceased to break my wings Against the faultiness of things, And learned that compromises wait Behind each hardly opened gate, When I can look Life in the eyes, Grown calm and very coldly wise, Life will have given me the Truth, And taken in exchange -- my youth."

"Everything comes down so pasteurizedeverything comes down 16 degreesthey say your amplifier is too loudturn your amplifier downare we high all alone on our kneesmemory is just hips that swinglike a clockthe past projects fantastic scenestic/toc tic/toc tic/tocfuck the clock!"

"Take away love and our earth is a tomb."