Poetry

Defeat, my Defeat, my self-knowledge and my defiance, Through you I know that I am yet young and swift of foot And not to be trapped by withering laurels. And in you I have found aloneness And the joy of being shunned and scorned.

— Kahlil Gibran · Defeat

The wayfarer, Perceiving the pathway to truth, Was struck with astonishment. It was thickly grown with weeds.

— Stephen Crane · The Wayfarer

In the long journey out of the self, There are many detours, washed-out interrupted raw places Where the shale slides dangerously And the back wheels hang almost over the edge

— Theodore Roethke · Journey Into The Interior

The nutritionist said I should eat root vegetables Said if I could get down 13 turnips a day I would be grounded, rooted.

— Andrea Gibson · The Nutritionist

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

— Mary Oliver · Lead

The wind, one brilliant day, called to my soul with an odor of jasmine. "In return for the odor of my jasmine, I'd like all the odor of your roses."

— Antonio Machado · The Wind, One Brilliant Day

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

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

Gently, but with undeniable will, divesting myself of the holds that would hold me. I inhale great draughts of space; The east and the west are mine, and the north and the south are mine. I am larger, better than I thought; I did not know I held so much goodness.

— Walt Whitman · Song Of The Open Road

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

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

— Charles Bukowski · Letter to John Martin

Do not love half lovers Do not entertain half friends Do not indulge in works of the half talented Do not live half a life and do not die a half death

— Kahlil Gibran · Do Not Love Half Lovers

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

(Poet’s Obligation) [https://youtu.be/aJ8yTw2v434?si=Td99WllijelN66gf\&t=51](https://youtu.be/aJ8yTw2v434?si=Td99WllijelN66gf&t=51) Translated by Alastair Reid To whoever is not listening to the seathis Friday morning, to whoever is cooped upin house or office, factory or woman…

— Pablo Neruda · Deber Del Poeta (Poet's Obligation)

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

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 Lord? There are degrees of madness. And the matter you are, the more obvious it will be to other

— Charles Bukowski · My Madness

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

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