Strategy for a MarathonI will startwhen the gun goes off.I will runfor five miles.Feeling good,I will run to the tenth mile.At the tenthI will say,Only three moreto the halfway.”At the halfway mark,13.1 miles,I will knowfifteen...

The kind of poetry to avoid in the pretty-pretty kind that pleased our grandmothers, the kind that Longfellow and Tennyson, good poets at their best, wrote at their worst.

There is the staircase,there is the sun.There is the kitchen,the plate with toast and strawberry jam,your subterfuge,your ordinary mirage.You stand red-handed.You want to wash yourself in earth, in rocks and grassWhat are you supposed to...

For I have learned to look on nature, not as in the hour of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes the still, sad music of humanity.

Dream by making and make by dreaming.

….my sacred landscape is the foothills of the stars – I go there often to sleep …

I spit into the face of Time That has transfigured me.

We love the imperfect shapes in nature and in the works of art, look for an intentional error as a sign of the golden key and sincerity found in true mastery.

It is beautiful to talk about beautiful things and even more beautiful to silently gaze at them.

you will never catch up.Walk around feeling like a leafknow you could tumble at any second.Then decide what to do with your time.–The Art of Disappearing

I enjoy it when the world smiles; the more smiles, the warmer I am.

We are all old-timers,each of us holds a locked razor.

From everything, nothing looks to nothing.

She was a beautiful dreamer. The kind of girl, who kept her head in the clouds, loved above the stars and left regret beneath the earth she walked on.

To go against the grain is the secret of bravery.

Lovers find secret placesinside this violent worldwhere they make transactions with beauty.

If Springtime crawls out of thewild mouths of flowers, thensurely, Winter crawls out of mine.

Be careful, darling. Your footsteps land heavy here. Your racket will wake the dragons.

Accidents are not accidents but precise arrivals at the wrong right time.

noone knows and noone seeswe lovers doing what we pleasebut people stop and point at theseten milk bottles a-turning into cheese

There are no winners in real games.

Only in Russia poetry is respected–it gets people killed.

The deeper thought is, the taller it becomes.

ආලයෙන් මම පිබිදී සිටිමිමලානික මලක් පුනරුදය ලබන්නා සේඑහෙත් එය මා පෙළයිවිහඟුන් කෙත් ඉහළ ඉගිල යයිමට අවැසියි ඔබ මුව සිඹිනවී කරලක් වන්න

Deceit dispels the boredom of the Absolute.

How many people came and stayed a certain time,Uttered light or dark speech that became part of youLike light behind windblown fog and sandFiltered and influenced by it, until no partRemains that is surely you.

The Scorpion?The Grasshopper?Which way will she go?

I love writing poetry because it’s pretty. I love writing pretty.

twice I have lived forever in a smile

We would rather be ruined than changedWe would rather die in our dreadThan climb the cross of the momentAnd let our illusions die.

You don’t buy poetry. (Neither do I.)Why?You cannot afford it? Bosh! You spendEditions de luxe on a thirsty friend.You can buy any one of the poetry bunchFor the price you pay for a business lunch....

Be there a picnic for the devil,an orgy for the satyr,and a wedding for the bride.

Writing and art are my lovers

Raise from your bed of languorRaise from your bed of dismayYour friends will not come tomorrowAs they did not come todayYou must rely on yourself, they said,You must rely on yourself,Oh but I find this...

Yes, he is here in thisopen field, in sunlight, amongthe few young trees set outto modify the bare facts–he’s here, but onlybecause we are here.When we go, he goes with usto be your hands that...

TO ALL MANKINDSpeak kind wordsto mankindand the unkindwill attack you.Speak common senseusing any of your senses,and you will be attacked bythe senseless.Speak truth,and you will be attacked bythe untruthful.Speak about absolutely nothing,and absolutely nothingwill speak...

She wore his flowerIn her hairScent of amberSweetened the airHer dress was whiteHer feet bareHe found heavenWaiting thereShe is aliveIn his painful sigh…

They think thee mad? I’ll show thou mad, my lord.

Thoughtful for Winter’s future sorrow,Its gloom and scarcity;Prescient to-day, of want to-morrow,Toiled quiet Memory.’Tis she that from each transient pleasureExtracts a lasting good;’Tis she that finds, in summer, treasureTo serve for winter’s food.And when Youth’s...

I am too alone in the world, and yet not alone enoughto make every moment holy.I am too tiny in this world, and not tiny enoughjust to lie before you like a thing,shrewd and secretive.I...

This is the creature there has never been.They never knew it, and yet, none the less,they loved the way it moved, its suppleness,its neck, its very gaze, mild and serene.Not there, because they loved it,...

You are to me like white islands, in a world of vast darkness.

To see a World in a grain of sand,And a Heaven in a wild flower,Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand,And Eternity in an hour.

Poem in other words may or may not result from inspiration but must (in reader and author alike) produce it–

I am telling himwhat he wants to hear: antsdying of love underthe constellation of the dandelion.I swear that a white rose,sprinkled with wine, sings.I am laughing, tiltingmy head carefullyas if checking an invention.I am dancing,...

This poetry is utilitarian—heavy-duty, industrial strength poetry. It is meant to be read aloud and, even better, memorized and recited. It is best used in the natural world where there are starlit skies, the warmth...

Note, to-day, an instructive, curious spectacle and conflict. Science, (twin, in its fields, of Democracy in its)—Science, testing absolutely all thoughts, all works, has already burst well upon the world—a sun, mounting, most illuminating, most...

I cannot forgive you. That day, if you had not refused, I would have given you a present. I would have carved my love in stone.

In a cage of wire-ribsThe size of a man’s head, the macaw bristles in a staringCombustion, suffers the stoking devils of his eyes.In the old lady’s parlour, where an aspidistra succumbsTo the musk of faded...

Beneath it allI kept faith with Ithaca, travelled,Travelled and travelled,Suffering much, enjoying a little;Met strange people singingNew myths; made myths myself.But this lion of the seaSalt-maned, scaly, wondrous of tail,Touched with power, insistentOn this brief...