Jack Kerouac
So therefore I dedicate myself to myself, to my art, my sleep, my dreams, my labors, my suffrances, my loneliness, my unique madness, my endless absorption and hunger—because I cannot dedicate myself to any fellow being. — Jack Kerouac
Month: October 2020
Rachel McKibbens
You have my permission not to love me;I am a cathedral of deadboltsand I’d rather burn myself downthan change the locks. — Rachel McKibbens, from “Letter From My Brain to My Heart,” Pink Elephants. (Cypher Books, December 1, 2009)
Eduardo Galeano
We are all mortal until the first kiss and the second glass of wine. — Eduardo Galeano
Nizar Qabbani
Every time I kiss youAfter a long separationI feelI am putting a hurried love letterIn a red mailbox. — Nizar Qabbani, “Every Time I Kiss You,” Arabic Poetry: http://www.adab.com/en Modern Arabic Poetry >> Nizar Qabbani. Poem No.: 336.
Charlotte Brontë
Sometimes I have the strangest feeling about you. Especially when you are near me as you are now. It feels as though I had a string tied here under my left rib where my heart is, tightly knotted to you in a similar fashion. And when you go, with all that distance between us, I… Continue reading Charlotte Brontë
Landis Everson
If you came into the roomfor any reasonI would put you in the vaserejecting the violetsthe Fall schedulethe fullness of my emptiness — Landis Everson, from section 2 of “A Prism of Birds,” Everything Preserved: Poems 1955-2005 (Graywolf Press, 2006)
Oscar Wilde
I see when men love women. They give them but a little of their lives. But women, when they love, give everything. — Oscar Wilde
Walt Whitman
Press close, bare-bosomed Night!Press close, magnetic, nourishing Night!Night of south winds! Night of the large, few stars!Still, nodding Night! Mad, naked, Summer Night! ― Walt Whitman, from “Song of Myself,” Leaves of Grass. Originally published: July 4, 1855.
Hans Christian Andersen
But a mermaid has no tears, and therefore she suffers so much more. — Hans Christian Andersen, from “The Little Mermaid” (1836). Originally published by C.A. Reitzel on 7 April 1837 in Fairy Tales Told for Children. First Collection. Third Booklet. 1837 (Eventyr, fortalte for Børn. Første Samling. Tredie Hefte. 1837).
Rainer Maria Rilke
[For the Sake of a Single Poem] … Ah, poems amount to so little when you write them too early in your life. You ought to wait and gather sense and sweetness for a whole lifetime, and a lone one if possible, and then, at the very end, you might perhaps be able to… Continue reading Rainer Maria Rilke
The Vale of Soul-Making 