Poetry

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

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

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

— Mary Oliver · Lead

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 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]

few good books and other works and from the best of the strange ones perhaps nothing they are their own paintings their own books their own music their own work sometimes I think I see them say a certain old man sitting on a certain bench in a certain way for a quick face going t…

— Charles Bukowski · The Strange

I ask them to take a poem and hold it up to the light like a color slide or press an ear against its hive.

— Billy Collins · Introduction To Poetry

Too much too little well not enough to fight too thin or nobody laughter or tears or immaculate haters lovers non-consumer an old guy in a cheap room

— Charles Bukowski · People Aren't Good (The Crunch)

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

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside, you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing. You must wake up with sorrow. You must speak to it till your voice catches the thread of all sorrows and you see the size of the cloth.

— Naomi Shihab Nye · Kindness

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 have been one acquainted with the night. I have walked out in rain—and back in rain. I have outwalked the furthest city light. I have looked down the saddest city lane.

— Robert Frost · Acquainted with the Night

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

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

Foreign Cass was the youngest and most beautiful of Five Sisters Cass was The Most Beautiful Girl In Town

— Charles Bukowski · The Most Beautiful Woman in Town

The Guitar The weeping of the guitarbegins.The goblets of dawnare smashed.The weeping of the guitarbegins.Uselessto silence it.Impossibleto silence it.It weeps monotonouslyas water weepsas the wind weepsover snowfields.Impossibleto silence it.It weeps for distant…

— Federico Garcia Lorca · La Guitarra (The Guitar)

Who is Jeremy Ward July 22nd 1985 dear Hans vanbrook thank you for your letter

— Charles Bukowski · Letter to Hans van den Broek [Re. Censorship]

How shall I hold my soul, so that it does not touch on yours? How shall I lift it beyond you to other things? Ah, gladly would I house it with something

— Rainer Maria Rilke · Love Song

Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow.

— Robert Frost · Stopping by Woods on a Snowy…