Nuit Blanche A music coaxed from humming strings would please; Not plucked, but drawn in creeping cadences Across a sunset wall where some Marquise Picks a pale rose amid strange silences. Ghostly and vaporous her gown sweeps by The twilight dusking wall, I hear her feet Delaying on the gravel, and a sigh, Briefly permitted,… Continue reading Amy Lowell
From the very fountain of enchantment there arises a taste of bitterness to spread anguish amongst the flowers. — Titus Lucretius Caru, The Way Things Are: The De Rerum Natura. Translated by Rolfe Humphries, (Indiana University Press January 1, 1968)
And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to everything? And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for? And have you changed your life? Mary Oliver, from “Swan,” Swan: Poems and Prose Poems. (Beacon Press; 1St Edition edition September 14, 2010)
you boys can keep your virgins give me hot old women in high heels. — Charles Bukowski, from “One of the Hottest,” Love Is a Dog from Hell. (Ecco; Ecco edition May 31, 2002) Originally published 1977.
I love the deep sound of the cello. Somehow, it sounds most like life—sad and sweet and lost. I always think that if the heart could sing, it would sound like a cello. — Thrity Umrigar, The Space Between Us. (Harper Perennial; 1st edition February 6, 2007)
Only my books anoint me, and a few friends, those who reach into my veins. — Anne Sexton, from “A Witches Life,” The Complete Poems. (Mariner Books; First Edition edition April 28, 1999) Originally published September 30th 1981.
We are like sculptors, constantly carving out of others the image we long for, need, love or desire, often against reality, against their benefit, and always, in the end, a disappointment, because it does not fit them. — Anaïs Nin
And death is a space in the heart. — Salvatore Quasimodo; from “Freshness of Rivers in Sleep,” Salvatore Quasimodo: Selected Poetry. (Italica Press July 1st 2003)
An anxiety for being me, forever trapped in myself, floods my whole being without finding a way out, shaping me into tenderness, fear, sorrow and desolation. — Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet. (Penguin Classics; New Ed edition December 31, 2002) Originally published 1982.
And taken by light in her arms at long and dear last I may without fail Suffer the first vision that set fire to the stars. — Dylan Thomas, from “Love in the Asylum,” The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas: The Original Edition. (New Directions (April 23, 2010) Originally published 1953.
The Vale of Soul-Making 