#poetry

The Dieter's Daughter Mom's got this taco guy's poem taped to the fridge, some ode to celery, which she is always eating. The celery, I mean, not the poem which talks about green angels and fragile corsets. I don't get it, but Mom says by the time she reads it she forgets she's hungry. One stalk for breakfast, along with half a grapefruit, or a glass of aloe vera juice, you know that stuff that comes from cactus, and one stalk for lunch with some protein drink that tastes like dried placenta, did you know that they put cow placenta in make-up, face cream, stuff like that? Yuck. Well, Mom says it's never too early to wish you looked different, which means I got to eat that crap too. Mom says: your body is a temple, not the place all good twinkies go to. Mom says: that boys remember girls that're slender. Mom says that underneath all this fat there's a whole new me, one I'd really like if only I gave myself the chance. Mom says: you are what you eat, which is why she eats celery, because she wants to be thin, not green or stringy, of course-- am I talking too fast?-- but thin as paper like the hearts we cut out and send to ourselves, don't tell anyone, like the hearts of gold melons we eat down to the bitter rind. ↗

— Anita Endrezze

#mothers-and-daughters #patriarchy #poetry #women #diet

Hearts rebuilt from hope resurrect dreams killed by hate. ↗

— Aberjhani

#faith #grief #hatred #healing #human-nature

No one has imagined us. We want to live like trees, sycamores blazing through the sulfuric air, dappled with scars, still exuberantly budding, our animal passion rooted in the city. ↗

— Adrienne Rich

#love #poetry #dreams

Hinged to forgetfulness like a door, she slowly closed out of sight, and she was the woman I loved, but too many times she slept like a mechanical deer in my caresses, and I ached in the metal silence of her dreams. ↗

— Richard Brautigan

#dreams

We were hooked when we woke. We had arms for each other. But I yearned to resume My dreams of another. ↗

— Roman Payne

#affairs #betrayal #dreams #nocturnal #poetry

I never dreamed the sea so deep, The earth so dark; so long my sleep, I have become another child. I wake to see the world go wild. ↗

— Allen Ginsberg

#poetry #dreams

Some people react physically to the magic of poetry, to the moments, that is, of authentic revelation, of the communication, the sharing, at its highest level...A good poem is a contribution to reality. The world is never the same once a good poem has been added to it. A good poem helps to change the shape and significance of the universe, helps to extend everyone's knowledge of himself and the world around him. ↗

— Dylan Thomas

#change

Never worry about the reader, what the reader can understand. When you are writing, glance over your shoulder, and you’ll find there is no reader. Just you and the page. Feel lonely? Good! Assuming you can write clear English (or Norwegian) sentences, give up all worry about communication. If you want to communicate, use the telephone. To write a poem you have to have a streak of arrogance (…) when you are writing you must assume that the next thing you put down belongs not for reasons of logic, good sense, or narrative development, but because you put it there. You, the same person who said that, also said this. The adhesive force is your way of writing, not sensible connection. ↗

— Richard Hugo

#poetry #communication

when I am feeling low all i have to do is watch my cats and my courage returns ↗

— Charles Bukowski

#courage #pets #poem #poetry #courage

I regret to say I'm unable to reply to your unexpressed desires. ↗

— Harryette Mullen

#poetry #regrets #silence #courage