#poetry

How do I feel today? I feel as unfit as an unfiddle, And it is the result of a certain turbulence in the mind and an uncertain burbulence in the middle. What was it, anyway, that angry thing that flew at me? I am unused to banshees crying Boo at me. Your wife can’t be a banshee— Or can she? ↗

— Ogden Nash

#drinking #hangover #marriage #poetry #relationships

Love is a clash of lightnings ↗

— Pablo Neruda

#love #poetry #spanish #true #beauty

may my heart always be open to little birds who are the secrets of living whatever they sing is better than to know and if men should not hear them men are old may my mind stroll about hungry and fearless and thirsty and supple and even if it's sunday may i be wrong for whenever men are right they are not young and may myself do nothing usefully and love yourself so more than truly there's never been quite such a fool who could fail pulling all the sky over him with one smile ↗

— E.E. Cummings

#youth #love

I am talking about the responsibility of the poet, who is irresponsible by definition, an anarchist enamored of a solar order and never of the new order or whatever slogan makes five or six hundred million men march in step in a parody of order. ↗

— Julio Cortázar

#poets #men

A poet is a blind optimist. The world is against him for many reasons. But the poet persists. He believes that he is on the right track, no matter what any of his fellow men say. In his eternal search for truth, the poet is alone. He tries to be timeless in a society built on time. ↗

— Jack Kerouac

#beat #early-stories-and-other-writings #jack-kerouac #optimist #prose-poetry

Calligraphy of geese against the sky- the moon seals it. ↗

— Yosa Buson

#nature #poetry #nature

If poetry comes not as naturally as the leaves to a tree it had better not come at all. ↗

— John Keats

#nature

Green in nature is one thing, green in literature another. Nature and letters seem to have a natural antipathy; bring them together and they tear each other to pieces. ↗

— Virginia Woolf

#drama #green #literature #nature #poetry

In your hands The dog, the donkey, surely they know They are alive. Who would argue otherwise? But now, after years of consideration, I am getting beyond that. What about the sunflowers? What about The tulips, and the pines? Listen, all you have to do is start and There’ll be no stopping. What about mountains? What about water Slipping over rocks? And speaking of stones, what about The little ones you can Hold in your hands, their heartbeats So secret, so hidden it may take years Before, finally, you hear them? ↗

— Mary Oliver

#mystery #nature #poetry #praying #nature

The machines are too dull when we are lion-poems that move & breathe. ↗

— Michael McClure

#lion #machines #nature #poems #poetry