December 2011
151 posts
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I take my cane to feel the way, for the air is so black I think already we are...
– Louise Erdrich, from The Plague of Doves (thanks, stillvolcanolife)
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She smiled, her last smile, to so much that had been possible.
– Ayn Rand, We the Living (thanks, scribbydr)
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I’d like to teach you the names of these trees, to confess
How much I need to...
– Alexander Long, from “Goodbye in Slow Motion with Those Trees Waving Back”
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[In silent farewell, he saluted the men he had known, whether they had hindered...
– Arthur C. Clarke, from Childhood’s End (thanks, maybenotamuggle)
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You must change your life.
– Rainer Maria Rilke, from “Archaic Torso of Apollo”
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I have reservoirs of want enough
to freeze many nights over.
– Conor O’Callaghan, from “January Drought” (adapted from rabbit-light)
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Now, suppose you must wed, and make no blunder,
And either would love you, and...
– Robert Service, from “?” (thanks, shedrake)
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Such is a silence
of a woman who
speaks against silence, knowing
silence is...
– Ilya Kaminsky, from “Deaf Republic: 10” (via weissewiese)
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[But the constricted light,
the year closing down on itself with all
the...
– Linda Pastan, from “The Letter” (adapted from soulsublime)
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Because you’re next,” I said. “I’m the demon slayer....
– Dan Wells, from Mr. Monster (thanks, randomawesomes)
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I learn by going where I have to go.
– Theodore Roethke, from “The Waking”
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I loved you Wednesday,—yes—but what
Is that to me?
– Edna St. Vincent Millay, from “Thursday”
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[They watch on, evil, incredibly stupid, enjoying my destruction.] “Poor...
– John Gardner, from Grendel (thanks, decadentspring)
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I wonder if you knew how I watched,
how I crowded before the spearsmen—
but...
– H. D., from “Loss“
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I carry from my mother’s womb
A fanatic heart.
– William Butler Yeats, from “Remorse For Intemperate Speech”
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Power, here, failed the deep imagining: but already my desire and will were...
– Dante Alighieri, from The Divine Comedy, “Paradisio,” translated by A. S. Kline
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[Soon this delightful trip which we had enjoyed for three months would be over.]...
– Gustave Flaubert, Over Strand and Field: A Record of Travel Through Brittany
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We are one.
– Cassandra Clare, from City of Fallen Angels
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And as we share God’s love with our brothers and sisters, God’s other children,...
– Desmond Tutu, from God Has a Dream (thanks, justwontbackdown)
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The fingers loosened, and the book they had held moved slowly and then swiftly...
– John Williams, Stoner
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The astonishing flowers, seething
a blue I could barely see.
– Mark Doty, from “Days of 1981”
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I was myself the compass of that sea:
I was the world in which I walked, and...
– Wallace Stevens, from “Tea at the Palaz of Hoon” (via gammasandgerunds)
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You got us home,
yet somehow
I am still out there:
gasping, falling,...
– Jane Kerrison, from Sailing
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What’s not to love?” I said simply. “He’s my brother.
– Rob Thurman, from Chimera (thanks, lovelysinnerlady)
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Out through the window, even in the darkness of the night, the blossoms of the...
– G. Garfield Crimmins, from The Republic of Dreams: A Reverie (thanks, tinyhomemaker)
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[One day after another—
Perfect.]
They all fit.
– Robert Creeley, “One Day”
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I can’t speak for other –
for me this is misery and happiness enough:
just...
– Wisława Szymborska, from “The Ball”(translated by Stanisław Barańczak and Claire Cavanagh)
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[On the way back to D.C. where he’d meet Phoebe and the girls, he stopped...
– Michael Palmer, from Miracle Cure (thanks, skyy-dn)
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[With every fragment of rock that falls from me, I can hear the voice of...
– Andrew Davidson, from The Gargoyle (thanks, learntolikeit)
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[Try finding a sunset through a simple gift of looking west. There can be too...
– Richard O. Moore, from “d e l e t e, Part 6”
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Be ignited, or be gone.
– Mary Oliver, from “What I Have Learned So Far”
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[There are miracles everywhere, though sometimes they are concealed, not by God,...
– Homer Hickam, from Sky of Stone (thanks, skyy-dn)
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Flee, my beloved, and liken yourself to a gazelle or to a fawn of the hinds on...
– From “The Song of Songs”
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[He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew...
– Clement Clarke Moore, from “A Visit from St. Nicholas”
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[Then he wiped his falling tears and, not paying any attention to the cries,...
– Dmitry Glukhovsky, from Metro 2033 (thanks, la-voyage-dans-la-lune)
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And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless us, everyone!
– Charles Dickens, from A Christmas Carol (thanks, behind-the-times)
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[So, good night unto you all.]
Give me your hands, if we be friends,
And Robin...
– William Shakespeare, from A Midsummer Night’s Dream
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In the still, warm air her song blended with the timeless smells: fresh cut...
– Kathryn Reiss, from Time Windows (thanks, skyy-dn)
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Perhaps not the meaning of time,
but the time of meaning, & the fact that...
– Seth Abramson, from “What I Have”
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I am present.
– Paul Goldman, from “For This Morning”
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And if it happens that you cannot
go on or turn back
and you find yourself...
– Mark Strand, from “Lines for Winter”
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And now time is rushing towards them where they stand side by side with arms...
– Anne Carson, from Autobiography of Red (thanks, petitemort-v)
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[When Asahaki gives the signal, the cart and the trolley move off: Toshio...
– Grant Sutherland, from Diplomatic Immunity (thanks, skyy-dn)
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[Above Manhattan, the moon wanes, and the sky turns clearer and colder.]...
– Marie Howe, from “After the Movie”
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5 tags
No more broken glass?” Sandeep said.
I ruffled his hair. “No more...
– Sally Grindley, from Broken Glass (thanks, blueskiesnews)
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[The sky was a god-bee that hummed. All the air boomed
with that thunder.] It...
– Luke Davies, from “[In the yellow time of pollen]”
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‘I can’t really think of anything that I can do,’ John...
– Brandon Scott Gorrell, during my nervous breakdown i want to have a biographer present (thanks, muumuuhouse)
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[She opened her hand and showed him the necklace. “Could you fix this? I...
– Lois Lowry, from Number the Stars (thanks, skyy-dn)
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Watch how the leaves balance the sky,
then let it fall.
– Helen Mort, from “Grasmere Oak”