#try

Most people become bankrupt through having invested too heavily in the prose of life. To have ruined one's self over poetry is an honour. ↗

— Oscar Wilde

#poetry #prose #life

Meridian First daylight on the bittersweet-hung sleeping porch at high summer; dew all over the lawn, sowing diamond- point-highlighted shadows; the hired man's shadow revolving along the walk, a flash of milkpails passing; no threat in sight, no hint anywhere in the universe, of that apathy at the meridian, the noon of absolute boredom; flies crooning black lullabies in the kitchen, milk-soured crocks, cream separator still unwashed; what is there to life but chores and more chores, dishwater, fatigue, unwanted children; nothing to stir the longueur of afternoon except possibly thunderheads; climbing, livid, turreted alabaster lit up from within by splendor and terror -- forded lightening's split-second disaster. ↗

— Amy Clampitt

#life

Sometimes it’s great, and sometimes it’s shit. These are the things all the great philosophers just won’t tell you flat out about life. You keep moving, keep living, keep breathing And you keep writing-creating because that’s what you do And that’s who you are. There are no magical voices to guide You except your own. Make it count. ~ R.M. ENGELHARDT ↗

— R.M. Engelhardt

#poet #poetry #quotes-on-life #quotes-on-writing #r-m-engelhardt

Unless you are silent, you will not know your urgent heart, how it beats between the thin skin of yes and no. ↗

— Drew Myron

#poetry-love-spirituality #poetry-quotes-life #reflection #thoughtful #life

But to cast my life away just like that for nothing at all -- that I won’t do. ↗

— Jaroslav Seifert

#poetry #life

We the mortals touch the metals, the wind, the ocean shores, the stones, knowing they will go on, inert or burning, and I was discovering, naming all the these things: it was my destiny to love and say goodbye. ↗

— Pablo Neruda

#poetry #love

Stephen kissed me in the spring, Robin in the fall, But Colin only looked at me And never kissed at all. Stephen’s kiss was lost in jest, Robin’s lost in play, But the kiss in Colin’s eyes Haunts me night and day. ↗

— Sara Teasdale

#love #memories #poetry #love

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why, I have forgotten, and what arms have lain Under my head till morning, but the rain Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh Upon the glass and listen for reply, And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain For unremembered lads that not again Will turn to me at midnight with a cry. Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree, Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one, Yet knows its boughs more silent than before: I cannot say what loves have come and gone, I only know that summer sang in me A little while, that in me sings no more. ↗

— Edna St. Vincent Millay

#poetry #love

A truth should exist, it should not be used like this. If I love you is that a fact or a weapon? ↗

— Margaret Atwood

#poetry #truth #love

Time does not bring relief; you all have lied Who told me time would ease me of my pain! I miss him in the weeping of the rain; I want him at the shrinking of the tide; The old snows melt from every mountain-side, And last year's leaves are smoke in every lane; But last year's bitter loving must remain Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide! There are a hundred places where I fear To go,--so with his memory they brim! And entering with relief some quiet place Where never fell his foot or shone his face I say, 'There is no memory of him here!' And so stand stricken, so remembering him! ↗

— Edna St. Vincent Millay

#sorrow #yearning #love