I’ll be writing as long as I can hold a pen in my curled, crimped arthritic hands and then I’ll dictate it, if it comes to that. They’ll have to pry my pen out of...

The Ph.D is one of the chosen who know that some things can never be fathomed, no matter how hard you try. What good are explanations? There is no possibility of explaining how such a...

There is a great deal of poetry and fine sentiment in a chest of tea

we’re lost where the mind can’t find usutterly lost

Distance, the dissonance insurmountable,would be not the end,but a magnet.When fingertips kiss,they imprint and cement something,that cannot be disintegrated. Time becomes a phantom,the wind becomes an anchor,and old dreams- blankets of warmth.Lull with me, Lady,there...

Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.

Places We LovePlaces we love exist only through us,Space destroyed is only illusion in the constancy of time,Places we love we can never leave,Places we love together, together, together,And is this room really a room,...

Time past and time futureWhat might have been and what has beenPoint to one end, which is always present.” (Four Quartets)

There is no Frigate like a Book To take us Lands awayNor any Coursers like a Page Of prancing Poetry – This Traverse may the poorest takeWithout oppress of Toll – How frugal is the...

They went forth to battle, but they always fell; Their eyes were fixed above the sullen shields;Nobly they fought and bravely, but not well,And sank heart-wounded by a subtle spell. They knew not fear that...

…so i will greet youin a wayall loved thingsare meant to be greetedwith a tear in my heartand a poem in my eye.

Even though I seem not human, a mute shelfof glucose, bottled blood, machineryto swell the lung and pump the heart—even so,do not put out my life. Let me still glow.

i can’t always tell what’s betterlong drivesin the star-spangled desertsor long walksalong winding tea gardens.

Critics write out of intellectual exercise, not poets. Poets write straight from the heart.

AubadeI work all day, and get half-drunk at night. Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare. In time the curtain-edges will grow light. Till then I see what’s really always there: Unresting death, a...

fortune has no era finer than this moment

i am eithera stormor a drought.in-betweenshave neverbeen my thing.

Verde que te quiero verde. Verde viento. Verdes ramas. El barco sobre la mar y el caballo en la montaña.

how is it thathe’s alwaysin my thoughts. even when i am not thinking.

Resolve, and thou art free.

Soughing” we call it, fromOld English, no less. How weightlesswords are when nothing will do.

Furthermore, he had beautiful eyes.

she’s gotoceanstucked awayin her hairpoems swimunder her skin.

Once upon a time, son, they used to laugh with their hearts and laugh with their eyes; but now they only laugh with their teeth, while their ice-block-cold eyes search behind my shadow. There was...

I don’t care what you say to me. I care what you share with me.

The surge of his ardour swept through him in climatic release, filling her womb with his final, mortal sowing.

Share your dreams and they will be inspired. Plant seeds of knowledge and they will grow and reproduce beyond measure.

I do strongly feel that among the greatest pieces of luck for high achievement is ordeal. Certain great artists can make out without it, Titian and others, but mostly you need ordeal. My idea is...

Falling in love was easy-when romantic attraction was combined with hungry, unsated desire, they formed a glamorous, glittering bauble as fragile as it was alluring, a bauble that could shatter as soon as it was...

Emerging from chaos, came Light, filling need.

No matter how you feel you have to actlike you are very popular with yourself;very relaxed and purposefulvery unconfusedand notlike you are walking through the sunshinesingingin chains.

Quiero que los poetas dejen de llamarse poetas y comiencen a llamarse sueños y que los sueños comiencen a llamarse estrellas o luciérnagas o arroyos o triciclos

Be content to love, to dazzle in the light,If only for moments…And then be gone,With gladness in your heart,Before the creeping shadowsClaim too much your sadness at leaving.

I saw my face todayAnd it looked older,Without the warmth of wisdomOr the softnessBorn of pain and waiting.The dreams were gone from my eyes,Hope lost in hollownessOn my cheeks,A finger of deathPulling at my jaws.So...

The tags’ chain stirs with the wind; and I sleepPaid, dead, and a soldier. Who fights for his own lifeLoses, loses: I have killed for my world, and am free.

True poetry is composed of metaphors and symbols which are born in the heart, rise like clouds, and assume a celestial form; verses formed otherwise are not poetry, but only artificial words, each of which...

I’ve given offense by saying I’d as soon write free verse as play tennis with the net down.

Truth And if sun comes How shall we greet him?Shall we not dread him,Shall we not fear himAfter so lengthy aSession with shade?Though we have wept for him,Though we have prayedAll through the night-years—What if...

There Will Be StarsThere will be stars over the place forever;Though the house we loved and the street we loved are lost,Every time the earth circles her orbitOn the night the autumn equinox is crossed,Two...

es gribu dvēseli izdvašotuz tavas plaukstaslai akmens kas tev uz krūtīmpārvēršas zieda drīksnālai dangaina takavaravīksnārīt atvērsies cīruļiupe degs un meklēs krastubet vai tavai plaukstai vajadzēsvēl vienas pasaules nastu?

Love is not loveWhich alters when it alteration finds,Or bends with the remover to remove.O no, it is an ever-fixed markThat looks on tempests and is never shaken;It is the star to every wand’ring bark,Whose...

The first kiss and the first glass of wine are the best.

Under the greenwood tree,Who loves to lie with meAnd tune his merry note,Unto the sweet bird’s throat;Come hither, come hither, come hither.Here shall he seeNo enemyBut winter and rough weather.

And maybe one winter it will get too cold and I’ll forget about the summers we once shared. My family portrait mightfold in too, producing the same horrific effect as Jeremy’s: that I, all along,...

A word is elegy to what it signifies.

Sometimes in composition class, when I have been confronted by someone who simply cannot get the first word written on paper, I give the following advice: Say your essay into a tape recorder and then...

How to be a Poet (to remind myself)Make a place to sit down. Sit down. Be quiet. You must depend upon affection, reading, knowledge, skill-more of each than you have-inspiration work, growing older, patience, for...

It seems to me now that the plain state of being human is dramatic enough for anyone; you don’t need to be a heroin addict or a performance poet to experience extremity. You just have...

This dream the world is having about itselfincludes a trace on the plains of the Oregon trail,a groove in the grass my father showed us allone day while meadowlarks were trying to tellsomething better about...

Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know