Poetry

I shall forget you presently, my dear, So make the most of this, your little day, Your little month, your little half a year Ere I forget, or die, or move away,

— Edna St. Vincent Millay · I shall forget you presently

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

Do not try to save the whole world or do anything grandiose. Instead, create

— Martha Postlethwaite · The Clearing

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

One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting

— Mary Oliver · The Journey

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

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

Lord: it is time. The summer was immense. Lay your shadow upon the sundials, and on the meadows let the winds go free. Command the last fruits to be full;

— Rainer Maria Rilke · Autumn Day

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

— Mary Oliver · Lead

(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

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

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

Rhyme XI —I am ardent, I am dark-skinned, I am the symbol of passion, my soul is filled with longing for pleasures. Are you looking for me? —No, it’s not you. —My forehead is pale, my tresses golden: I can offer you endless joys, I hold a treasure of tenderness. Are you calling…

— Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer · Rima XI (Rhyme XI)

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

Waking alone At the hour when we are Trembling with tenderness Lips that would kiss Form prayers to broken stone.

— T.S. Eliot · The Hollow Men

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

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

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

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