Everyday can be extraordinaryAnd ripe,Like a flower burst,If the will is there.

Through the darkest hours of the nightand through the dreamers realm I seek,Far beyond the starry skyand beyond galaxies I am free.Through the grimmest memoriesand past a seasons air I cannot breathe,Far beyond this mortal...

This, this indeed is to be accursed, For if we mortals love, or if we sing, We count our joys not by what we have, But by what kept us from that perfect thing.

In the beginning was the word, and primitive societies venerated poets second only to their leaders. A poet had the power to name and so to control; he was, literally, the living memory of a...

A poem is never a put-up job, so to speak. It begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness. It is never a thought to begin with.

Dreams, the veins of the universe.

My heart in the East But the rest of me far in the West— How can I savor this life, even taste what I eat? How, in the bonds of the Moor, Zion chained to...

There is poetry as soon as we realize that we possess nothing.

In The WoodI heard the water-fall rejoiceSinging like a choir,I saw the sun flash out of itAzure and amber fire. The earth was like an open flowerEnamelled and arrayed, The path I took to find...

I don’t understand the whole thrilling verse, but I love the way poetry turns ordinary words into winged things that rise up and soar!

NexusI wrote stubbornly into the evening.At the window, a giant praying mantisrubbed his monkey wrench head against the glass,begging vacantly with pale eyes;and the commas leapt at me like wormsor miniature scythes blackened with age.the...

Little CinderGirl, they can’t understand you.You rise from the as-heap in a blazeand only then do they recognize you as their one true love.While you pray beneath your mother’s tree you carrve a phoenix into...

Find that gem amongst your so-called, “friends.

If that poem idea is in your head NOW, write it down. Right now. Or lose it. For when it’s gone, it’s gone forever…

Foggy nights bring some comfort.He can get lost in the mistand there is no one to stare or question.

Everything is an echo of something I once read.Dream, hope, and celebrate life!Love always comes back in a song.One thing we all have in common is a love for food and drink.Memories never die, and...

I sing the song of my heartstrings, alone in the eternal muteness, in the face of God.

Sing your life; any fool can think of words that rhyme.

If we go on in this way, we shall have a new art of poetry, of which one of the first rules will be: To remember to forget that there are any such things as...

Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thoughtAs doth eternity…

I walk with a dual longing for life and for death.

When he was in college, a famous poet made a useful distinction for him. He had drunk enough in the poet’s company to be compelled to describe to him a poem he was thinking of....

It was a dance of masks and every mask was perfect because every mask was a real face and every face was areal mask so there was no mask and there was no face for...

Lineation can make your break your poems.

Higgledy piggledy, my black hen,She lays eggs for gentlemen.Gentlemen come every dayTo count what my black hen doth lay.If perchance she lays too many,They fine my hen a pretty penny;If perchance she fails to lay,The...

We never said farewell, not even lookedOur last upon each other, for no signWas made when we the linked chain unhookedAnd broke the level line.And here we dwell together, side by side,Our places fixed for...

How many fears came between us?Earthquakes, diseases, wars where hellrained smoldering pus from skies made of winged death.Horror tore this world asunder.While inside the bleeding smokeand beyond the shredded weeping fleshwe memorized tales of infinite...

Romantic waves beat deep in my chest of playful untouchable thoughts of you… As dreams are the threads I weave with care the path for you to me…the sky above lagoon with lovely lights, soft...

Remember: In poetry, each word is like a loaded gun; very heavy, and full of intent

You have been told that, even like a chain, you are as weak as your weakest link.This is but half the truth.You are also as strong as your strongest link.To measure you by your smallest...

{…]I began to feel tears of frustration build up in my eyes, yearning to free themselves from their glandular prisons.

Love’s mysteries in souls do grow,But yet the body is his book.

The talked about their messed-up, dysfunctional families, carefully respecting boundaries, never probing too deep in any one sitting. And they always ended up laughing. Even when the subject matter was intense or macabre, Henry’s sick...

We hear the saints saying: Our brother the world. We hear the revolutionaries: Dare we win?

But now, you are twain, you are cloven apartFlesh of his flesh, but heart of my heart.

Xs and OsLove is a gameof tic-tac-toe,constantly waiting,for the next x or o.

The ocean-blue bowl won’t refuse to bruise, won’t hold it back from the gaping earth-wounds.There will still come water, chill wind and happy goosebumps, and in the utmost corners of oaks, leaves laughing.

Honor LostAmbulant sunshine piercedthe soot covered glass ~the feeble man wandered byin this ritual morning pass …

How could poetry and literature have arisen from something as plebian as the cuneiform equivalent of grocery-store bar codes? I prefer the version in which Prometheus brought writing to man from the gods. But then...

Do You Believe…on this road of lifeon this dayI take younow husband and wife…

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...

to live in this worldyou must be ableto do three thingsto love what is mortal;to hold itagainst your bones knowingyour own life depends on it;and, when the time comes to let it go,to let it...

Had we but world enough, and time…

On the beach, at dawn:Four small stones clearlyHugging each other.How many kinds of loveMight there be in the world,And how many formations might they makeAnd who am I everTo imagine I could knowSuch a marvelous...

Up, lad: thews that lie and cumberSunlit pallets never thrive;Morns abed and daylight slumberWere not meant for man alive.

Prison MoonFour a.m. work duty and I beginmy solitary trudge from outer compoundto main building. A shivering guard,chilled in his lonely outpost, strip searchesme until content that my inconsequential nudity.poses no threat and then whispersthe...

Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!The world is holy! The soul is holy! The skin is holy!The nose is holy! The tongue and cock and handand asshole...

Ali ipak uz mene se može, mada je neobično, Sa mnom je opasno hteti, ja nikad ne odustajem.

Any healthy man can go without food for two days–but not without poetry.

Paris and HelenHe called her: golden dawnShe called him: the wind whistlesHe called her: heart of the skyShe called him: message bringerHe called her: mother of pearl barley woman, rice provider, millet basket, corn maid,...