Poetry

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

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

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

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

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

It feels like smoke curling up from a cigarette someone left burning on a baby grand piano around three o’clock in the morning; smoke that billows up into the bright lights

— Billy Collins · Nightclub

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

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…

This door you might not open, and you did; So enter now, and see for what slight thing You are betrayed…. Here is no treasure hid No cauldron, no clear crystal mirroring

— Edna St. Vincent Millay · Bluebeard

Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I’ve tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire.

— Robert Frost · Fire and Ice

There is enough treachery hatred violence absurdity in the average human being to supply any given army on any given day and the best of murder of

— Charles Bukowski · The Genius of the Crowd

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

(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)

(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)

Nice chance completely cut loose from purpose he was a young man riding a bus through North Carolina on the way to somewhere

— Charles Bukowski · Nirvana

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

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

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]

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

— Charles Bukowski · Letter to John Martin