Poetry

We cannot fathom his mysterious head, Through the veiled eyes no flickering ray is sent: But from his torso gleaming light is shed As from a candelabrum; inward bent

— Rainer Maria Rilke · Archaic Torso of Apollo

Who is Jeremy Ward? August 12th, 1986. Hello, John. Thanks for the good letter. I

— Charles Bukowski · Letter to John Martin

Bring the Symphony Orchestra there is a thunderstorm you're playing a Wagner overture and the people leave their seats under the trees and run inside to

— Charles Bukowski · Rain

If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too;

— Rudyard Kipling · If

Long live the weeds that overwhelm My narrow vegetable realm\! – The bitter rock, the barren soil That force the son of man to toil;

— Theodore Roethke · Long Live The Weeds

All I could see from where I stood Was three long mountains and a wood; I turned and looked another way, And saw three islands in a bay.

— Edna St. Vincent Millay · Renascence

and squander the power of the noblest gift, only to make men worse, more skeptical, and sadder? Is this your sacred calling as prophets and as artists?… Where are our enthusiasts, our dreamers, our troubadours, to sing us the meaning of the world and the splendors of nature?

— Alexandru Vlahuță · Where Are Our Dreamers

If you’re going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don’t even start. If you’re going to try, go all the way. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives, jobs and maybe even your mind.

— Charles Bukowski · Go All The Way

Lord: it is time. The summer was immense. Lay your shadow upon the sundials, and on the meadows let the winds go free. Command the last fruits to be full;

— Rainer Maria Rilke · Autumn Day

You know i've either had a family a job something has always been in the way but now i've sold my house

— Charles Bukowski · Creativity

(I Ask For Silence) Translated by Heidi Fischbach Now if you’d leave me in peace. Now if you’d get on without me. I am going to close my eyes And I only want five things, five favorite roots. The first is love without end. The second is to see autumn. I cannot be without leaves f…

— Pablo Neruda · Pido Silencio (I Ask For Silence)

Hog Butcher for the World, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler; Stormy, husky, brawling,

— Carl Sandburg · Chicago

Do not try to save the whole world or do anything grandiose. Instead, create

— Martha Postlethwaite · The Clearing

You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body

— Mary Oliver · Wild Geese

there's a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out but I'm too tough for him, I say, stay in there, I'm not going

— Charles Bukowski · Bluebird

Indelicate is he who loathes The aspect of his fleshy clothes,— The flying fabric stitched on bone, The vesture of his skeleton,

— Theodore Roethke · Epidermal Macabre

we had goldfish and they circled around and around in the bowl on the table near the heavy drapes covering the picture window and my mother, always smiling, wanting us all

— Charles Bukowski · A Smile to Remember

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;

— William Butler Yeats · The Lake Isle of Innisfree

Here is a story to break your heart. Are you willing?

— Mary Oliver · Lead