Poem Quotes

And now dear little children, who may this story read, To idle, silly flattering words, I pray you ne'er give heed: Unto an evil counsellor, close heart and ear and eye, And take a lesson from this tale, of the Spider and the Fly.

~ Mary Howitt

They're both convincedthat a sudden passion joined them.Such certainty is beautiful,but uncertainty is more beautiful still.Since they'd never met before, they're surethat there'd been nothing between them.But what's the word from the streets, staircases, hallways--perhaps they've passed by each other a million times?I want to ask themif they don't remember--a moment face to facein some revolving door?perhaps a sorry muttered in a crowd?a curt wrong number caught in the receiver?but I know the answer.No, they don't remember.They'd be amazed to hearthat Chance has been toying with themnow for years.Not quite ready yetto become their Destiny,it pushed them close, drove them apart,it barred their path,stifling a laugh,and then leaped aside.There were signs and signals,even if they couldn't read them yet.Perhaps three years agoor just last Tuesdaya certain leaf flutteredfrom one shoulder to another?Something was dropped and then picked up.Who knows, maybe the ball that vanishedinto childhood's thicket?There were doorknobs and doorbellswhere one touch had covered another beforehand.Suitcases checked and standing side by side.One night, perhaps, the same dream,grown hazy by morning.Every beginningis only a sequel, after all,and the book of eventsis always open halfway through.

~ Wisława Szymborska

How clear, how lovely bright,How beautiful to sight Those beams of morning play;How heaven laughs out with gleeWhere, like a bird set free,Up from the eastern sea Soars the delightful day.To-day I shall be strong,No more shall yield to wrong, Shall squander life no more;Days lost, I know not how,I shall retrieve them now;Now I shall keep the vow I never kept before.Ensanguining the skiesHow heavily it dies Into the west away;Past touch and sight and soundNot further to be found,How hopeless under ground Falls the remorseful day.

~ A.e. Housman

TREE HOUSEA tree house, a free house,A secret you and me house,A high up in the leafy branchesCozy as can be house.A street house, a neat house,Be sure to wipe your feet houseIs not my kind of house at all- Let's go live in a tree house.

~ Shel Silverstein

My country, 'tis of thee,Sweet land of liberty,Of thee I sing;Land where my fathers died,Land of the pilgrims' pride,From every mountainsideLet freedom ring!My native country, thee,Land of the noble free,Thy name I love;I love thy rocks and rills,Thy woods and templed hills;My heart with rapture thrills,Like that above.Let music swell the breeze,And ring from all the treesSweet freedom's song;Let mortal tongues awake;Let all that breathe partake;Let rocks their silence break,The sound prolong.Our father's God to Thee,Author of liberty,To Thee we sing.Long may our land be bright,With freedom's holy light,Protect us by Thy might,Great God our King.

~ Samuel Francis Smith

The word love has always tasted like the scent of fresh ink and soft paper to me. Like a newly written poem.

~ Megan Hart

There are so many things to say, so many things that can't really be said. So much has happened, so little has changed. We have so many words prepared, so many words are too hard to actually say. A few days have passed, this pain has been here for years. We don't know where to go from here, our future has always been in our minds. Moments of peace with those who constantly argue, fights with those that usually bring peace. There are so many things to say, so many things that can't really be said.

~ Alysha Speer

Yawn...I believe that I love sleepmuch more than anybody I’ve evermet.I have the ability to sleep for2 or 3 days andnights.I will go to bed at any givenmoment.I often confused my girlfriendsthis way—say it would be about onethirtyin the afternoon:“well, I’m going to bed now, I’mgoing to sleep…”most of them wouldn’t mind, theywould go to bed with methinking I was hinting forsexbut I would just turn my backand snore off.this, of course, could explainwhy so many of my girlfriendsleft me.as for doctors, they were neverany help:“listen, I have this desire togo to bed and sleep, almost allthe time.what is wrong withme?”“do you get enough exercise?”“yes…”“are you getting enoughnourishment?”“yes…”they always handed me aprescriptionwhich I threw awaybetween the office and theparking lot.it’s a curious maladybecause I can’t sleep between6 p.m. and midnight.it must occur aftermidnightand when I ariseit can never bebefore noon.and should the phone ringsay at 10:30 a.m.I go into a mad ragedon’t even ask who the callerisscream into thephone: “WHAT ARE YOUCALLING ME FOR AT THISHOUR!”hangup…every person, I suppose, hastheir eccentricitiesbut in an effort to benormalin the world’seyethey overcome themand thereforedestroy theirspecial calling.I’ve kept mineand do believe thatthey have lent generously tomy existence.I think it’s the main reason Idecided to become awriter: I can typeanytime andsleepwhen I damn wellplease.

~ Charles Bukowski

If the world stops spinning, slowing to a crawl. I will continue to dream of you. Until, I no longer dream at all.

~ Jessica De La Davies

I am nobody, even if I say I am this or that.

~ Santosh Kalwar

Love much. Earth has enough of bitter in it.

~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Never complete. Never whole.White skin and an African soul.

~ Michelle Frost

His brow is seamed with line and scar;His cheek is red and dark as wine;The fires as of a Northern starBeneath his cap of sable shine.His right hand, bared of leathern glove,Hangs open like an iron gin,You stoop to see his pulses move,To hear the blood sweep out and in.He looks some king, so solitaryIn earnest thought he seems to stand,As if across a lonely seaHe gazed impatient of the land.Out of the noisy centuriesThe foolish and the fearful fade;Yet burn unquenched these warrior eyes,Time hath not dimmed, nor death dismayed.

~ Walter De La Mare

THE ONE WHO STAYEDYou should have heard the old men cry,You should have heard the biddiesWhen that sad stranger raised his fluteAnd piped away the kiddies.Katy, Tommy, Meg and BobFollowed, skipped gaily,Red-haired Ruth, my brother Rob,And little crippled Bailey,John and Nils and Cousin Claire,Dancin', spinnin', turnin','Cross the hills to God knows where-They never came returnin'.'Cross the hills to God knows whereThe piper pranced, a leadin'Each child in Hamlin Town but me,And I stayed home unheedin'.My papa says that I was blestFor if that music found me,I'd be witch-cast like all the rest.This town grows old around me.I cannot say I did not hearThat sound so haunting hollow-I heard, I heard, I heard it clear...I was afraid to follow.

~ Shel Silverstein

Look, do you see that poem?' she said suddenly, pointing.

~ L.m. Montgomery

An orphans curse would drag to hellA spirit from on high,But oh! How more horrible that thatIs the curse in a dead man’s eye!

~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Every poem is an infant labored into birth and I am drenched with sweating effort, tired from the pain and hurt of being a man, in the poem I transform myself into a woman.

~ Jimmy Santiago Baca

What a skeletal wreck of man this is.Translucent flesh and feeble bones,the kind of temple where the whores and villains try to tempt the holistic domes.Running rampid with free thought to free form, and the free and clear.When the matters at hand are shelled out like lint at alaundry mat to sift and focus on the bigger, better, now.We all have a little sin that needs venting,virtues for the rending and laws and systems and stems are rippedfrom the branches of office, do you know where your post entails? Do you serve a purpose, or purposely serve?When in doubt inside your atavistic allure, the value of a summer spent, and a winter earned.For the rest of us, there is always Sunday.The day of the week the reeks of rest, but all we do is catch our breath,so we can wade naked in the bloody pool, and place our hand on the big, black book.To watch the knives zigzag between our aching fingers.A vacation is a countdown, T minus your life andcounting, time to drag your tongue across the sugar cube,and hope you get a taste.WHAT THE FUCK IS ALL THIS FOR?WHAT THE HELL’S GOING ON? SHUT UP!I can go on and on but lets move on, shall we?Say, your me, and I’m you, and they all watch the things we do,and like a smack of spite they threw me down the stairs,haven’t felt like this in years.The great magnet of malicious magnanimous refuse, let me go,and punch me into the dead spout again.That’s where you go when there’s no one else around,it’s just you, and there was never anyone to begin with, now was there?Sanctimonious pretentious dastardly bastards with their thumb on the pulse,and a finger on the trigger.CLASSIFIED MY ASS! THAT’S A FUCKING SECRET, AND YOU KNOW IT!Government is another way to say better…than…you.It’s like ice but no pick, a murder charge that won’t stick,it’s like a whole other world where you can smell the food,but you can’t touch the silverware.Huh, what luck. Fascism you can vote for.Humph, isn’t that sweet?And we’re all gonna die some day, because that’s the American way,and I’ve drunk too much, and said too little,when your gaffer taped in themiddle, say a prayer, say a face, get your self together and see what’s happening.SHUT UP! FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU!I’m sorry, I could go on and on buttheir times to move on so, remember: you’re a wreck, an accident.Forget the freak, your just nature.Keep the gun oiled, and the temple cleaned shit snort,and blaspheme, let the heads cool, and the engine run.Because in the end, everything we do, is just everything we’ve done.

~ Stone Sour

Some there be that shadow kiss, Such have but a shadow's bliss.

~ William Shakespeare

We will paste upon the curled pages wordsLike charming and romantic and sentimentalForgetting that charming is witchcraftRomantic is loveAnd sentiment is what makes us human

~ Emilie Autumn

If I were dead, I wouldn't be sad, and I wouldn't be glad, because I wouldn't be.

~ Marcus Sedgwick

I have studied many timesThe marble which was chiseled for me—A boat with a furled sail at rest in a harbor.In truth it pictures not my destinationBut my life.For love was offered me and I shrank from its disillusionment;Sorrow knocked at my door, but I was afraid;Ambition called to me, but I dreaded the chances.Yet all the while I hungered for meaning in my life.And now I know that we must lift the sailAnd catch the winds of destinyWherever they drive the boat.To put meaning in one’s life may end in madness,But life without meaning is the tortureOf restlessness and vague desire—It is a boat longing for the sea and yet afraid.

~ Edgar Lee Masters

Shade for a manAnd shelter for animals,Planted in your name,May you be the same for those around you,Every year the same.

~ Nancy J. Cavanaugh

The birthing wolf,Her heart fed with tenderness,Gave forth from ripe brown nipples,Food to feed the universe.

~ Roman Payne

How can I wear the harness of toilAnd sweat at the daily round,While in my soul foreverThe drums of Pictdom sound?

~ Robert E. Howard

My care is like my shadow in the sun, Follows me flying, flies when I pursue it, Stands and lies by me, doth what I have done.

~ Elizabeth I

America, the plum blossoms are falling.

~ Allen Ginsberg

The way you walk is slash and burn.Like understatement's now a crime.

~ Justin Quinn

the flesh covers the bone and they put a mind in there and sometimes a soul, and the women break vases against the walls and the men drink too much and nobody finds the one but keep looking crawling in and out of beds. flesh covers the bone and the flesh searches for more than flesh.

~ Charles Bukowski

Steal not this book for fear of shameFor on it is the owners nameAnd when you die the Lord will sayWhere is the book you stole awayAnd when you say you do not knowThe Lord will say go down below.

~ L.m. Montgomery

YOU YOU YOUyour eyes, thick as a high school scrapbook crackling and yellow, curling at the edgesa book of myths in which i do not appear.

~ Clint Catalyst

Since ever the world was spinningAnd till the world shall endYou've your man in the beginningOr you have him in the end,But to have him from start to finishAnd neither nor borrow nor lendIs what all of the girls are wantingAnd none of the gods can send

~ L.m. Montgomery

Fox-TrotBy the stream the fox and she-fox stoodNose to nose beneath the starsDancing the music of the woods.The deer rapped a beat with their hooves,The ravens sang from raven heartsAs by the stream the fox and she-fox stood.The great owl called as a great owl would,The squirrels all shimmied in the dark,Dancing the music of the woods.Then from the north a fierce wind blewAnd broke the starry dance apartBy the stream where the fox and she-fox stood.

~ Beth Kephart

Believe me, if all those endearing young charms,Which I gaze on so fondly to-day,Were to change by to-morrow, and fleet in my arms,Live fairy-gifts fading away,Thou wouldst still be adored, as this moment thou art,Let thy loveliness fade as it will,And around the dear ruin each wish of my heartWould entwine itself verdantly still.It is not while beauty and youth are thine own,And thy cheeks unprofaned by a tear,That the fervor and faith of a soul may be known,To which time will but make thee more dear!No, the heart that has truly loved never forgets,But as truly loves on to the close,As the sunflower turns on her god when he setsThe same look which she turned when he rose!

~ Thomas Moore

Despair and Genius are too oft connected

~ George Gordon Byron

That young man with the long, auburn hair and the impudent face - that young man was not really a poet; but surely he was a poem.

~ G.k. Chesterton

Mark but this flea, and mark in this, How little that which thou deniest me is; Me it sucked first, and now sucks thee, And in this flea our two bloods mingled be; Thou know’st that this cannot be said A sin, or shame, or loss of maidenhead, Yet this enjoys before it woo, And pampered swells with one blood made of two, And this, alas, is more than we would do. Oh stay, three lives in one flea spare, Where we almost, nay more than married are. This flea is you and I, and this Our mariage bed and mariage temple is; Though parents grudge, and you, we are met, And cloisterd in these living walls of jet. Though use make you apt to kill me, Let not to that, self-murder added be, And sacrilege, three sins in killing three. Cruel and sudden, hast thou since Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence? Wherein could this flea guilty be, Except in that drop which it sucked from thee? Yet thou triumph’st, and say'st that thou Find’st not thy self, nor me the weaker now; ’Tis true; then learn how false, fears be: Just so much honor, when thou yield’st to me, Will waste, as this flea’s death took life from thee.

~ John Donne

Ah Sun-flower! weary of time,Who countest the steps of the Sun:Seeking after that sweet golden climeWhere the traveller's journey is done. Where the Youth pined away with desire,And the pale Virgin shrouded in snow: Arise from their graves and aspire, Where my Sun-flower wishes to go.

~ William Blake

We turned an anthem into an assignment, a poem into a job description.

~ Rachel Held Evans

If I wrote the word flower,would it still grow like a flower?If I wrote a poem concerning a river,would the water still flow in the eyes of the reader?

~ Zakariya Amataya