Since poetry deals with the singular, not the general, it cannot – if it is good poetry – look at things of this earth other than as colorful, variegated, and exciting, and so, it cannot...

ConnubialBecause with alarming accuracy she’d been identifying patterns I was unaware of—this tic, that tendency, like the way I’ve mastered the language of intimacy in order to conceal how I felt— I knew I was...

Poetry is the rhythmical creation of beauty in words.

Now a promise made is a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own stern code.

Mom wholeheartedly… She loved me—and inspired me—with transcending devotion. It was a blessing—to have been her son, to have been loved—without conditions. Her words of wisdom opened my eyes to the world—and to myself. By...

When the hatred stops will the love begin? When there is no more greed will there then be peace?

…relámpagos de risa carmesíes…

It was useless trying to explain to Cecila that poetry wasn’t a commodity, that it could never be bought or sold, that it was, in fact, unteansferrable, remaining forever a part of the one who...

Dreams. They start in your beautiful mind. Think of beautiful things and it will manifest into actions because your body will listen to you. Like it always does.

Take away love and our earth is a tomb.

that stone Buddha deserves all the birdshit it getsI wave my skinny arms like a tall flower in the wind

It’s not the word made flesh we want in writing, in poetry and fiction, but the flesh made word

Some wrong eternity that wouldn’t budge, like trying to move a wardrobe or a safe, only to feel how light I was.

Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotion...

A true poet is one who can appreciate the disciplines and structures of any and all styles of poetry.

Let your life lightly dance on the edges of Time like dew on the tip of a leaf.

I measure every Grief I meetWith narrow, probing, Eyes;I wonder if It weighs like Mine,Or has an Easier size. I wonder if They bore it long,Or did it just begin?I could not tell the Date...

I’d rather be not the light in your lifeThe bright day might make me obscureI’d rather be the cold darknessFor it remains, unseen, uncertain and unsure

The Poets light but Lamps-Themselves-go out-

I want you to crave the crisp ocean breezeas much as I do.I want your soul to beas rain-swept as mine.

Cuando vayamos al maryo te diré mi secreto:Me envuelve, pero no es ola…Me amarga…, pero no es sal…

some poems frothand foam and rise…out of my morning cup ofmist-sweetened coffee.

ne tappavat itsensä kaasulla, vedellä, tulella,ampumalla, hirttämällä, hyppäämällä, tekemälläharakirin, vuotamalla kuiviin, syömällätabuja tai tarttumalla sähkööntoiset tallentavat itsensä videolleheinäsirkat saapuvatmaa väistyy altakalpeat miehet nousevat kellareistavitamiinipurkit taskuissa helistenonko olemassa ketäänjolla ei olisi luurankoapiilossa sängyn alla!

Only in books the flat and final happens, Only in dreams we meet and interlock….

Here is Menard’s own intimate forest: ‘Now I am traversed by bridle paths, under the seal of sun and shade…I live in great density…Shelter lures me. I slump down into the thick foliage…In the forest,...

A poem in the heart is worthmore than a million dollarsin the bank account.

Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;Thy fate is the common fate of all,Into each life some rain must fall

Not words. nor laughter. but rather someonewho will fall in lovewith your silence.

Dancing falls into the same category as poetry for a woman – it equals dreaming, which may inspire thoughts about such banned topics as love and desire.

in the afterglowof an evening raini lay downin the grass and think of youmy body acheslike an after-kissbreaking in soft firesand wildflowersmy dear, i will always bethis tender for you.

Words are what sticks to the real. We use them to push the real, to drag the real into the poem. They are what we hold on with, nothing else. They are as valuable in...

Your daughter is ugly.She knows loss intimately,carries whole cities in her belly.As a child, relatives wouldn’t hold her.She was splintered wood and sea water.They said she reminded them of the war.On her fifteenth birthday you...

Of the many forms that silence takes, the most memorable is the dry husk of the cicada.

O rose, you look sick.O rose, wake up and sing.

willow trees, willow trees they remind me of DesdemonaI’m so damned literary

Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman.

With a little more time, patience, and hard work, and above all with a more sensitive taste for the formal aspects of arts, he would have managed to write mediocre poetry, good enough for a...

All beautiful distractions, ignites from you.

Each Moment a White Bull Steps Shining into the World If the gods bring to youa strange and frightening creature,accept the giftas if it were one you had chosen. Say the accustomed prayers,oil the hooves...

The sea, the sea…Man alone,Passive, unawareIn his elemental sadness.

I don’t analyze beautiful. I sit in its presence and love the wholeness of it–the sweet and sad and raw and bright together.Poetry is that, the weaving of light-shadow. Making words from the unwordable.

I had a theory; I’m not sure if it was my own but it worked for me. Public spaces, such as streets and subway stations, became inhabitable as I assigned them some value and imprinted...

They were learning that New York had another life, too — subterranean, like almost everything that was human in the city — a life of writers meeting in restaurants at lunchtime or in coffee houses...

INTO MY OWNOne of my wishes is that those dark trees,So old and firm they scarcely show the breeze,Were not, as ’twere, the merest mask of gloom,But stretched away unto the edge of doom.I should...

MiaowConsider me.I sit here like Tiberius,inscrutable and grand.I will let “I dare not”wait upon “I would”and bear the twanglingof your small guitarbecause you are my owland foster me with milk.Why wet my paw?Just keep me...

I am not yours, not lost in you,Not lost, although I long to beLost as a candle lit at noon,Lost as a snowflake in the sea.You love me, and I find you stillA spirit beautiful...

It is the job of poetry to clean up our word-clogged reality by creating silences around things.

We can’t choose our poetic fathers any more than our biological ones — but we can choose how to come to terms with them.

That life is simply a collection of little lives, each lived one day at a time. That each day should be spent finding beauty in flowers and poetry and talking to animals. That a day...

He that is thy friend indeed,He will help thee in thy need:If thou sorrow, he will weep;If thou wake, he cannot sleep:Thus of every grief in heartHe with thee doth bear a part.These are certain...