When power leads man toward arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the area of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses… We must never forget that art is not a form of propaganda; it is a form of truth. — John F. Kennedy
Dylan Marlais Thomas (October 27, 1914 – November 1953) Shall gods be said to thump the clouds When clouds are cursed by thunder, Be said to weep when weather howls? Shall rainbows be their tunics’ colour? When it is rain where are the gods? Shall it be said they sprinkle water From garden cans, or free …
Continue reading "Dylan Thomas – Shall God Be Said To Thump The Clouds"
Wyn Cooper It will be strange Knowing at last it couldn’t go on forever, The certain voice telling us over and over That nothing would change, And remembering too, Because by then it will all be done with, the way Things were, and how we had wasted time as though There was nothing to do, …
Mark Strand (April 11, 1934 - November 29, 2014) It will be strange Knowing at last it couldn’t go on forever, The certain voice telling us over and over That nothing would change, And remembering too, Because by then it will all be done with, the way Things were, and how we had wasted time …
Continue reading "Mark Strand – When The Vacation Is Over For Good"
Philip Levine (January 10, 1928 - February 14, 2015) We stand in the rain in a long line waiting at Ford Highland Park. For work You know what work is — if you’re old enough to read this you know what work is, although you may not do it. Forget you. This is about waiting, …
Eric Weinstein A tree takes root The night grows feathers & I do not grow feathers I carve my name in the sand A tooth takes root My body comprises satellites very minor electricities Birds scatter when I begin to speak A tree is deciduous Leaves turn and return I am taller now and not …
Tao Writer (April 17, 1948 -) I like my coffee black, my whiskey on the rocks, my wine chilled in a flat bottom glass— the way they serve it in Italy. I like my woman in ecstasy, moaning my name out loud. My eggs, scrambled, moist but not runny. I like my sheets and towels …
Continue reading "Tao Writer – Three O’clock In The Morning"
Maria Wisława Anna Szymborska (July 2, 1923–February 1, 2012) I prefer movies. I prefer cats. I prefer the oaks along the Warta. I prefer Dickens to Dostoyevsky. I prefer myself liking people to myself loving mankind. I prefer keeping a needle and thread on hand, just in case. I prefer the color green. I prefer …
Continue reading "Maria Wisława Anna Szymborska – Possibilities"
Mary Jane Oliver (September 10, 1935 – January 17, 2019) 1 Don’t bother me. I’ve just been born. 2 The butterfly’s loping flight carries it through the country of the leaves delicately, and well enough to get it where it wants to go, wherever that is, stopping here and there to fuzzle the damp throats …
Tracy K Smith (April 16, 1972 -) They’re gassing geese outside of JFK. Tehran will likely fill up soon with blood The Times is getting smaller day by day. We’ve learned to back away from all we say And, more or less, agree with what we should. Whole flocks are being gassed near JFK. So …
Mark Doty (August 10, 1953 -) The little goats like my mouth and fingers, and one stands up against the wire fence, and taps on the fence board a hoof made blacker by the dirt of the field, pushes her mouth forward to my mouth, so that I can see the smallish squared seeds of …
Gerald Stern (February 22, 1925 -) The dead warbler started to sing as she whom I love bent down to pick him up with two reluctant fingers, maybe the small finger (of the left hand) curling, as at dinner, and carry him home and quietly put him into a see-through plastic bag as she did …
Maya Angelou (April 04,1928 - May 28, 2014) Pretty women wonder where my secret lies. I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size But when I start to tell them, They think I'm telling lies. I say, It's in the reach of my arms The span of my hips, The stride of …
Arthur Rimbaud (October 20, 1854 – November 10, 1891) I went off with my hands in my torn coat pockets; My overcoat too was becoming ideal; I travelled beneath the sky, Muse! and I was your vassal; Oh dear me! what marvelous loves I dreamed of! My only pair of breeches had a big whole …
Léo Dangel In the early afternoon my mother was doing the dishes. I climbed onto the kitchen table, I suppose to play, and fell asleep there. I was drowsy and awake, though, as she lifted me up, carried me on her arms into the living room, and placed me on the davenport, but I pretended …
Charles Simic (May 09, 1938 -) This peaceful world of ours is ready for destruction— And still the sun shines, the sparrows come Each morning to the bakery for crumbs. Next door, two men deliver a bed for a pair of newlyweds And stop to admire a bicycle chained to a parking meter. Its owner …
Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto (July 12, 1904 – September 23 1973), better known by his pen name and, later, legal name Pablo Neruda And it was at that age . . . poetry arrived in search of me. I don’t know, I don’t know where it came from, from winter or a river. I don’t …
Katie Ford Nothing is nothing, although he would call me that, *She was nothing*. Those were his words, but his hand was lifting cigarettes in chains and bridges of ash-light. He said he didn’t want his body to last. It wasn’t a year I could argue against that kind of talk, so I cut the …
Camille Rankine The sun eats away at the earth, or the earth eats away at itself and burning up, I sip at punch. So well practiced at this living. I have a way of seeing things as they are: it’s history that’s done this to me. It’s the year I’m told my body will turn …
John L. Stanizzi I had seen them in the tree, and heard they mate for life, so I hung a bird feeder and waited. By the third day, sparrows and purple finches hovered and jockeyed like a swarm of bees fighting over one flower. So I hung another feeder, but the squabbling continued and the …
William Stanley Merwin (September 30, 1927 – March 15, 2019) In the morning as the storm begins to blow away the clear sky appears for a moment and it seems to me that there has been something simpler than I could ever believe simpler than I could have begun to find words for not patient …
Anne Sexton (November 9, 1928 – October 4, 1974) There is joy in all: in the hair I brush each morning, in the Cannon towel, newly washed, that I rub my body with each morning, in the chapel of eggs I cook each morning, in the outcry from the kettle that heats my coffee each …
Wendell Berry (August 05, 1934 -) 1 How much poison are you willing 2 to eat for the success of the free 3 market and global trade? Please 4 name your preferred poisons. 5 For the sake of goodness, how much 6 evil are you willing to do? 7 Fill in the following blanks 8 …
Charles Simic (May 09, 1938 -) It seemed the kind of life we wanted. Wild strawberries and cream in the morning. Sunlight in every room. The two of us walking by the sea naked. Some evenings, however, we found ourselves Unsure of what comes next. Like tragic actors in a theater on fire, With birds …
Rabindranath Tagore (May 07, 1861 – August 07, 1941) Mother, the folk who live up in the clouds call out to me- "We play from the time we wake till the day ends. We play with the golden dawn, we play with the silver moon." I ask, "But how am I to get up to …
Nikki Giovanni (June 7, 1943 -) The night loves the stars as they play about the darkness … the day loves the light caressing the sun … We love … those who do … because we live in a world requiring light and darkness … partnership and solitude … sameness and difference … the familiar …
Billy Collins (March 22, 1941 -) This morning as I walked along the lakeshore, I fell in love with a wren and later in the day with a mouse the cat had dropped under the dining room table. In the shadows of an autumn evening, I fell for a seamstress still at her machine in …
Derek Walcott (January 23, 1930 - March 17, 2017) The time will come when with elation, You will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror, and each will smile at the other’s welcome, and say, Sit here. Eat. You will love again the stranger who was your Self. Give wine. Give …
Henri Cole (May 09, 1956 -) Sir, I don’t have no black tea, the waitress replied, so I ordered Black Label instead. It was summer and the fragrant white flowers of the black locusts had awakened, like faeries or obscure matter. A black bear clothed in thorns made a mess of the bird feeder where …
Fleur Adcock (February 10, 1934 -) Literally thin-skinned, I suppose, my face catches the wind off the snow-line and flushes with a flush that will never wholly settle. Well: that was a metropolitan vanity, wanting to look young for ever, to pass. I was never a pre-Raphaelite beauty nor anything but pretty enough to satisfy …
Louise Gluck (April 22, 1943 -) Now that she is old, the young men don’t approach her so the nights are free, the streets at dusk that were so dangerous have become as safe as the meadow. By midnight, the town’s quiet. Moonlight reflects off the stone walls; on the pavement, you can hear the …
Barbara Ras (1949 -) This peaceful world of ours is ready for destruction— And still the sun shines, the sparrows come Each morning to the bakery for crumbs. Next door, two men deliver a bed for a pair of newlyweds And stop to admire a bicycle chained to a parking meter. Its owner is making …
If you begin to understand what you are without trying to change it, then what you are undergoes a transformation. —Jiddu Krishnamurti
The truest philosophy, is not to long for anything in particular, but to accept everything as it comes, and find out the reason of it coming. — Marie Corelli
...If one looks long enough at almost anything, looks with absolute attention at a flower, a stone, the bark of a tree, grass, snow, a cloud, something like revelation takes place. — May Sarton
The most we can do is to write — intelligently, creatively, evocatively — about what it is like living in the world at this time. — Oliver Sacks
When power leads man toward arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the area of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses... We must never forget that art is not a form of propaganda; it is a form of truth. — John F. Kennedy
