Poetry

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

When I do count the clock that tells the time, And see the brave day sunk in hideous night; When I behold the violet past prime, And sable curls all silver’d o’er with white;

— William Shakespeare · Sonnet 12: When I Do Count

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

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

— John Roedel · My Love

And if I loved you Wednesday, Well, what is that to you? I do not love you Thursday— So much is true.

— Edna St. Vincent Millay · Thursday

I That is no country for old men. The young In one another's arms, birds in the trees, —Those dying generations—at their song,

— William Butler Yeats · Sailing To Byzantium

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

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

AS I lay with my head in your lap, Camerado, The confession I made I resume— what I said to you in the open air I resume: I know I am restless, and make others so;

— Walt Whitman · Epitaph for a Friend

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

We think by feeling. What is there to know? I hear my being dance from ear to ear. I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

— Theodore Roethke · The Waking

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

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

equally the beech, the oaks and the pines, they give off such hints of gladness. I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

— Mary Oliver · When I Am Among The Trees

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

Now I am out of element And far from anything my own, My sources drained of all content, The pieces of my spirit strewn.

— Theodore Roethke · Against Disaster

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

Oh, oh, you will be sorry for that word\! Give back my book and take my kiss instead. Was it my enemy or my friend I heard, “What a big book for such a little head\!”

— Edna St. Vincent Millay · Oh, oh, you will be sorry

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