Poetry

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

— Stephen Crane · The Wayfarer

I might as well begin by saying how much I like the title. It gets me right away because I’m in a workshop now so immediately the poem has my attention, like the Ancient Mariner grabbing me by the sleeve.

— Billy Collins · Workshop

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

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

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

— John Roedel · My Love

since feeling is first who pays any attention to the syntax of things will never wholly kiss you;

— e.e. cummings · [since feeling is first]

(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)

(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

I stopped looking for you I stopped waiting for you I stopped dying for you and I started dying for myself

— Leonard Cohen · I stopped looking for you

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

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

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

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

(Keeping Quiet) Translated by Stephen Mitchell Now we will all count to twelve and we will all keep still. This one time upon the earth, let’s not speak any language, let’s stop for one second, and not move our arms so much. It would be a delicious moment, without hurry, without…

— Pablo Neruda · A Callarse (Keeping Quiet)

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

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

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

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

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

— Martha Postlethwaite · The Clearing