Best 8159 quotes in «poetry quotes» category

The most carefully crafted language in our culture tends to be poetry. And poetry at its finest moments subverts our best attempts at hiding from reality... The poetry of liturgy has just this power. The liturgy contains words that have been shaped and crafted over the centuries. It is formal speech. It is public poetry. As such it reaches into us to reveal not only the unnamed reality of our lives but the God who created us... But even when the words of the liturgy are not literally biblical words, the words, like all truthful words, work on us over time, like a steady, unrelenting stream slowly reshapes the banks of a river. The words do something to us even when we're not paying attention.

The most sublime labour of poetry is to give sense and passion to insensate things; and it is characteristic of children to take inanimate things in their hands and talk to them in play as if they were living persons... This philological-philosophical axiom proves to us that in the world's childhood men were by nature sublime poets...

The musician is perhaps the most modest of animals, but he is also the proudest. It is he who invented the sublime art of bringing life to poetry.

The movement Of the body is Where poetry Begins

The murder of a child has no justification, even if the bombs have missed their mark.

The Moth and Its Beloved Ask the moth the beauty of the candle And it will burn without a confession There is a secret to its longing For it feels no fear or hesitation The moth is too much in love with the flame Yet it does not appear under the sun For the moon’s light is far too feeble, and It gave up on its pursuit of the sun Just a sight of a candle is enough To remind it of its real beloved So it settles for that candle in reach, Revels in its heat, and asks to be burned

THE MOTH AND THE BUTTERFLY When the sun rises over the horizon, the butterfly emerges to dance in its brilliant light. It flickers its colorful wings with euphoria, To celebrate all the beauty found in the majestic garden of life. When the moon arrives in the darkness, The moth appears at the disappearance of sunlight. It flickers its pale wings as it shakes from its deep slumber, To go search for food To carry it through the night. The moth prefers the moon and detests the sun, while the butterfly loves the sun and hides from the moon. Every living creature responds to light, But depending on the amount of light you have inside, Determines which lamp in the sky Your heart will swoon. Poetry by Suzy Kassem

Then answered her son, who turns the stars in the sky: 'What way art thou bending fate, Mother? What dost thou ask For these thy ships? May vessels built by the hands Of mortal men claim an immortal right? Is Aeneas to pass, sure of the outcome, through dangers When nothing is sure? To what god is such power allowed?

The nature of poems Is a matter of words and deeds An intimate encounter of voice In the ache of the heart In the labor of breathing A hesitant casting of eyes Away from the mundane to see That delicate and shiny thing In the oddly prosaic rock pile An extravagance of conceit An abundance of grace A prayer for words to speak

Then, after picking up his papers, Pierre began: “A beautiful woman can be the downfall of a gentleman . . . but the uplift of a beggar!

Then all the charm Is broken--all that phantom-world so fair Vanishes, and a thousand circlets spread, And each mis-shape the other.

The New World Order is established by degrees. The first degree is truth of the one subject, which follows from the existence and the oneness of the universe, and from the ancient belief that God is all-knowing.

The neurologist had dismissed her case after a single visit, handing out an easy nostrum by telling her father that if she continued to write poetry, she would be all right.

The new world is as yet behind the veil of destiny In my eyes, however its dawn has been unveiled

Then I found my head one day when I wasn't even trying.

The night itself is riddled with her, wide with her, and alive with her. It seems that it has no word or other traveler, no other secret sign.

The night is the balm for the wounded soul!

Then one day I found my head when I wasn't even trying.

The night is not so sinister or long each trial of the soul will not seem slight upon arrival of the morning light when even the hardest labors seem less strong. -- Nightmare

The night is still waiting.

Then the pulse. Then a pause. Then twilight in a box. Dusk underfoot. Then generations. — Then the same war by a different name. Wine splashing in the bucket. The erection, the era. Then exit Reason. Then sadness without reason. Then the removal of the ceiling by hand. — Then pages & pages of numbers. Then the page with the faint green stain. Then the page on which Prince Theodore, gravely wounded, is thrown onto a wagon. Then the page on which Masha weds somebody else. Then the page that turns to the story of somebody else. Then the page scribbled in dactyls. Then the page which begins Exit Angel. Then the page wrapped around a dead fish. Then the page where the serfs reach the ocean. Then a nap. Then the peg. Then the page with the curious helmet. Then the page on which millet is ground. Then the death of Ursula. Then the stone page they raised over her head. Then the page made of grass which goes on. — Exit Beauty. — Then the page someone folded to mark her place. Then the page on which nothing happens. The page after this page. Then the transcript. Knocking within. Interpretation, then harvest. — Exit Want. Then a love story. Then a trip to the ruins. Then & only then the violet agenda. Then hope without reason. Then the construction of an underground passage between us. Srikanth Reddy, "Burial Practice" from Facts for Visitors. Copyright © 2004 by the Regents of the University of California. Reprinted by permission of The University of California Press. Source: Facts for Visitors (University of California Press, 2004)

Then there's the two of us. This word is far too short for us, it has only four letters, too sparse to fill those deep bare vacuums between the stars that press on us with their deafness. It's not love we don't wish to fall into, but that fear. This word is not enough but it will have to do. It's a single vowel in this metallic silence, a mouth that says O again and again in wonder and pain, a breath, a finger grip on a cliffside. You can hold on or let go.

Then, the door opens and there he is; silhouetted in the hall light. Long hair, long legs, and a heartbeat in tune with my own.

The object of poetic activity is essentially language: whatever his beliefs & convictions, the poet is more concerned with words than what these words designate.

The ocean cradles the bloodied moon in its aquatic arms like a mother holds her crying babe.

the ocean mist engulfs me, like a lifetime’s friendship honored.

Then, what is sacrelige [sic]? If it is nothing more than a rebellion against dogma, it is eventually as meaningless as the dogma it defies, and they are both become hounds ranting in the high grass, never see the boar in the thicket. Only a religious person can perpetrate sacrelige: and if its blasphemy reaches the heart of the question; if it investigates deeply enough to unfold, not the pattern, but the materials of the pattern, and the necessity of a pattern; if it questions so deeply that the doubt it arouses is frightening and cannot be dismissed; then it has done its true sacreligious [sic] work, in the service of its adversary: the only service that nihilism can ever perform. (unused 1949 prefatory note to The Recognitions)

The ocean-blue bowl won’t refuse to bruise, won’t hold it back from the gaping earth-wounds. There will still come water, chill wind and happy goosebumps, and in the utmost corners of oaks, leaves laughing.

The older poets were Ethelbert Miller, Kenneth Carroll, Brian Gilmore. It is important that I tell you their names, that you know that I have never achieved anything alone.

Then you are a poet?' she asked, fingering the flyer in her pocket. 'No not at all,' he waved his hand. 'I am merely a character in a poem.

Theology is a distinctly rare, a puzzling study, given that its practitioners are happiest when the terms of their discovery fall well short of their projected point; this is where they likely glimpse their proof.

THE OLD MAN IN THE CORNER The man in the corner Is dying with words He's crying to be heard His days are marked And his only ears are birds He knows the secret to peace And his experience bleeds and hurts Somebody stop and listen Before he departs the earth! Somebody write his thoughts Before he hits the turf! His eyes are closing their shutters And he just dropped his Beads and stick. His breath is leaving us. Please! Somebody hear him out quick! A little girl rushes to him and Picks up his cane of wood. The old man then turns to her And faintly whispers, "The key to peace is To always stay fair And be good.

The one who can draw your widest smile is also the one who can throw you to the farthest exile

the one who will jolt awake all the unwritten the unsung and the unlived in me. i am waiting for him.

The one young officer swung his horse around, came back, and leaned over into Penthe's face. She did not look at him. "Are you free, Miss?" "I am free. Free from everyone, but my lover. He has stolen my heart and soul forever.

The only thing necessary in this world is love. Everything else is secondary.

the only thing required to be a woman is to identify as one. - period, end of story.

The open door is never behind you; the open door is always before you. Quit looking at your past life and mistakes. Look unto Jesus who is the Author and Perfector of our faith. Your open door is not in the opportunity you missed ten years ago, it is not in some stuffs behind you that you can't get back. You can't gain your access by giving attention to your past life. Your past days are behind you and what God has for you is in front of you. Just pay attention.

The only way to find art is to lose touch with reality.

The other man, just as lonesome as I am In this empty universe

The panther that has stalked you since you were a child is old now. No longer wild, and tired of guarding the treasure you yourself left behind - blind and deaf, she will give it all to you if you just let her go.

The ovation roared around him. He felt nothing in particular, hardly even the embarrassment he had feared. He had to go up again—this time without Fräulein Gasteiner, and it was a little peculiar to him to hear the noise of clapping hands and the loud shouts of "Bravo". He bowed several times, turned to the door and then, just as the clapping was getting weaker, he heard a voice from slightly behind him, or to the side—he couldn't quite tell—but the words were perfectly distinct, no matter how quietly they had been said: "Poor devil!" He wanted to look around, but he felt that that would seem absurd.

The past is falling to pieces like the beggar with his clown-clothes . . .

The pain of seven continents weighs on his carefree soul as God ponders his next move.

the pain was too much to bear my only choice was to write out the voices in my head

The Peace of Wild Things When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

The peace and beauty of it all, before I can fly, I learn how to crawl. Mentally rich so space jam is where I take my lessons to ball. Failures of life? Haa, angels surround me as if I'm never destined to fall, It's destined for all, tap into conscious mind is what makes me so raw.

The pen to a writer is like a cigarette to a smoker; they need it to take the edge off.

The people of Instagram are making trips to photograph things before they’re gone or before we’re all dead, whichever comes first. We have to see the glacier because we’re melting it. We have to see the eclipse before smog obscures the sun forever.

The Perfect Man. The perfect man is gentle, Never cruel or mean. He has an beautiful smile, And keeps his face so clean. The perfect man likes children, And will raise them by your side. He will be a good father, As well as an good husband to his bride. The perfect man loves cooking , Cleaning and vacuuming too. He will do anything in his power, To convey his feelings of love on you. The perfect man is sweet , Writing poetry from your name. He's an best freind to your mother, And kisses away your pain. He has never made you cry, Or hurt you in any way. Oh f*** this stupid poem, The perfect man is GAY!