All Quotes By Tag: Poet

“If I had a soul I sold itfor pretty wordsIf I had a body I usedit up spurting my essenceAllen Ginsberg warns youdont follow my pathto extinction”

“When a poet digs himself into a hole, he doesn’t climb out. He digs deeper, enjoys the scenery, and comes out the other side enlightened.”

“You might as well ask an artist to explain his art, or ask a poet to explain his poem. It defeats the purpose. The meaning is only clear thorough the search.”

“THE SCRIBEUnder the wingsOf the feathered GoddessAnd in the middleOf the three dancing women,The scribe comes aliveTo reveal mysteries hiddenThrough divine gifts givenThe scribe is drivenOn his missionTo wake upAll the universe’sMen, women andHeavenly children.Under the seven rays of Aten,And from the age of just ten,The scribe comes aliveWith the inkOf his luminous pen.Below the spectacle of the moon,And in the smile of the sun,The scribe is here to show usHow we are all one.THE SCRIBE by Suzy Kassem”

“The key to a wonderful lifeIs to never stop wandering into wonder.Because to live a predictable life,Only fills a person with strife,And such a person will always be wondering:’What a limitless life could be lived beyond the lines?’Such is a question a curious spirit would never sit forever and ponder.So always pursue new ventures in your life,And be willing to open doors to different light;This is the only way to keep it magical and always filled with wonder.Days will feel shorter, but your happiness will grow stronger –Because living a life without curiosity and adventure,Is a stale life where days only feel longer andLonger.”

“For the philosopher is right who says that nothing thicker than a knife’s blade separates happiness from melancholy”

“For the philosopher is right who says that nothing is thicker than a knife’s blade separates happiness from melancholy”

“Fundamentals of EsperantoThe grammatical rules of this language can be learned in onesitting.Nouns have no gender & end in -o; the plural terminates in -oj & the accusative, -on Amiko, friend; amikoj, friends; amikon & amikojn, accusativefriend & friends.Ma amiko is my friend.A new book appears in Esperanto every week. Radio stations inEurope, the United States, China, Russia & Brazil broadcast inEsperanto, as does Vatican Radio. In 1959, UNESCO declared theInternational Federation of Esperanto Speakers to be in accord withits mission & granted this body consultative status. The youthbranch of the International Federation of Esperanto Speakers, UTA,has offices in 80 different countries & organizes social events whereyoung people curious about the movement may dance to recordingsby Esperanto artists, enjoy complimentary soft drinks & take homeEsperanto versions of major literary works including the OldTestament & A Midsummer Night’s Dream. William Shatner’s firstfeature-length vehicle was a horror film shot entirely in Esperanto.Esperanto is among the languages currently sailing into deep spaceon board the Voyager spacecraft.-Esperanto is an artificial languageconstructed in 1887 by L. L. Zamenhof, a polish oculist.following a somewhat difficult periodin my life. It was twilight & snowing on the railway platform just outside Warsaw where I had missedmy connection. A man in a crumpled track suit & dark glasses pushed a cart piled high with ripped & weathered volumes—sex manuals, detective stories, yellowingmusical scores & outdated physics textbooks, old copies of Life, new smut, an atlas translated,a grammar, The Mirror, Soviet-bloc comics, a guide to the rivers & mountains, thesauri, inscrutablemusical scores & mimeographed physics books,defective stories, obsolete sex manuals— one of which caught my notice (Dr. Esperanto since I had time, I traded my used Leaves of Grass for a copy.I’m afraid I will never be lonely enough.There’s a man from Quebec in my head,a friend to the purple martins.Purple martins are the Cadillac of swallows.All purple martins are dying or dead.Brainscans of grown purple martins suggestthese creatures feel the same levels of doubt& bliss as an eight-year-old girl in captivity.While driving home from the breweryone night this man from Quebec heard a radio programabout purple martins & the next day he set outto build them a housein his own back yard. I’ve never built anything,let alone a house,not to mention a homefor somebody else.Never put in aluminum floors to smooth over the waiting.Never piped sugar water through colored tubesto each empty nest lined with newspaper shreddedwith strong, tired hands.Never dismantled the entire affair& put it back together again.Still no swallows.I never installed the big light that stays on through the nightto keep owls away. Never installed lesser lights,never rested on Sundaywith a beer on the deck surveyingwhat I had done& what yet remained to be done, listening to Styxwhile the neighbor kids ran through my sprinklers.I have never collapsed in abandon.Never prayed.But enough about the purple martins.Every line of the workis a first & a last line & this is the springof its action. Of course, there’s a journey& inside that journey, an implicit voyagethrough the underworld. There’s a bridgemade of boats; a carp stuffed with flowers;a comic dispute among sweetmeat vendors;a digression on shadows;That’s how we finally learnwho the hero was all along. Weary & old,he sits on a rock & watches his friendsfly by one by one out of the song,then turns back to the journey they all beganlong ago, keeping the river to his right.”

“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)”

“Si quelqu’un vous dit : “Je me tue à vous le répéter”, laissez-le mourir.”

“Antique FoundationHere I built the ruin inMy voice on either side of meIn the temple the ocean couldNot be a crowd I minedThe shore with fog the sun driesThese bricks I built the vision inThe cinder block that is the cityWall this graveTone I speak with a pictureOf myself in my wallet •Don’t be fooled by grass and these wordsGrass whispersBecause they are real they areRuinous Here, the gossip is in the dustNot the sea cloud enters the openChild’s window dimming the silverFlute’s sheen Where is he Who hears inside the brick those notes?There is a rumor in the city we’ll existIf he plays his song no one knows •Follow that shadow don’t tell me it’s mineHere there is no being aloneHere are my hands which tore the leaves soQuietly in the temple the godEmerging from marble points at the chiselAt the base of his stone Did I tell youWhere I’m going? To the old manWho sings the marginWhere on wave-tip swords turn edge over edgeWound us and the shore with foam •My face on either side of my face I toreMy picture in half to show the gateYou must climb inside your breath to leaveAs fog the wind will bear you—If you’re lovely—away In the spare cloudsThe children’s chorus Do you hear?—Where were you, and where are you going?Here I built the ruin in the stone-crushed Sage leaves my hands scented as long ago When I liked to press the desert against my head to think”

“Some Consequences of the Made ThingThe End. Above these words the sky closes.It closes by turning white. NotThe white of all clouds or being within a cloud.White of worldless light. The End.Feel a silence there that reminds you of a scent.Crushed grass the hooves galloped throughOr is it the binder’s glue?Some silence never not real finally can beHeard. Silence before the first words.Precedent chaos. Or marrow work.Or just the sound of the throat opening to speak.Like those scholars of pure waterWho rode through mountains and meadowsTo drink from each fresh spring a glassAnd then with brush and ink wrote poemsOn the differences of sameness,You too feel yourself taste the silent pageOf the end and the silent page of beginning.They taste so much of whiteness never moreWhite than white that’s been lost.You have some sense of the bookAltering, page sewn secretly next to page,Last page stitched to first. O, earth—It rolls around the solar scrollTurning nothing into years and years intoNothing. At The End you’re a witness to this workThat wears the witness away. And who are youAnyway. Pronoun of the 2nd person. Lover,Stranger, God. Student, Child, Shade.Something similar gathers in you.Another way of saying I in a poem—Of saying I in a poem that realizes at the endThat I am just a distance from myself.And so are you. That same distance.”

“Everyone is born an artist. What differentiates us are the variations of creativity.”

“Democracy is only as moral and just as those in power, and only as wise as the citizens who elect them.”

“Anger is energy: If you hold on to it, it’ll infect you. But if you channel it into something positive — great things are possible.”