Poetry

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

(translated by Robert Bly) I can tell by the way the trees beat, after so many dull days, on my worried window panes that a storm is coming,

— Rainer Maria Rilke · The Man Watching

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

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

— Mary Oliver · Lead

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 am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground. So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind: Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.

— Edna St. Vincent Millay · Dirge Without Music

What’s madness but nobility of soul At odds with circumstance? The day’s on fire\! I know the purity of pure despair, My shadow pinned against a sweating wall.

— Theodore Roethke · In a Dark Time

Sometimes the scales themselves weigh far too much, the heaviness of forever balancing blue sky with red blood. We were all born on days when too many people died in terrible ways, but you still have to call it a birthday.

— Andrea Gibson · Birthday

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

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

my love, don't let your skin become so thick that

— John Roedel · My Love

you shall above all things be glad and young For if you’re young,whatever life you wear it will become you;and if you are glad whatever’s living will yourself become.

— e.e. cummings · [you shall above all things be glad]

Out of the night that covers me, Black as the Pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul.

— W.E. Henley · Invictus

But there are times the pupils of his eyes Dilate, the strong limbs stand alert, apart, Tense with the flood of visions that arise Only to sink and die within his heart.

— Rainer Maria Rilke · The Panther

*A couple years ago, I was told a story about a soldier who was set on fire and burned to death because he was gay. After that, I started reading similar stories about people in the GLBTQ community who were tortured or killed by being set on fire and burned. I couldn’t stop think…

— Andrea Gibson · Ashes

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why, I have forgotten, and what arms have lain Under my head till morning; but the rain Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh

— Edna St. Vincent Millay · What Lips My Lips Have Kissed

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

You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

— Maya Angelou · Still I Rise

(translated by Annemarie S. Kidder) I am much too alone in this world, yet not alone enough to truly consecrate the hour.

— Rainer Maria Rilke · I Am Much Too Alone