Sunday, April 29, 2012

Saturday, April 28, 2012

Famous People Love Poems

If Galileo had said in verse that the world moved, the inquisition might have let him alone.
Thomas Hardy

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Famous People Love Poems

If you read quickly to get through a poem to what it means, you have missed the body of the poem.
M. H. Abrams

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Famous People Love Poems

No poems can please for long or live that are written by water drinkers.
Horace

Monday, April 23, 2012

Famous People Love Poems

One merit of poetry few persons will deny: it says more and in fewer words than prose.
Voltaire

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Famous People Love Poems

One will never again look at a birch tree, after the Robert Frost poem, in exactly the same way.
Paul Muldoon

Thursday, April 19, 2012

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Famous People Love Poems

Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.
Robert Frost

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Saturday, April 14, 2012

Famous People Love Poems

Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.
Leonard Cohen

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Famous People Love Poems

Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history.
Plato

Famous People Love Poems

Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things.
T. S. Eliot

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Famous People Love Poems

Poetry is ordinary language raised to the Nth power. Poetry is boned with ideas, nerved and blooded with emotions, all held together by the delicate, tough skin of words.
Paul Engle

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Sunday, April 8, 2012

Famous People Love Poems

Publishing a volume of verse is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo.
Don Marquis

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Knossoss Gothic

Did the kids down the street
from the Labyrinth
tell horror stories
about the boy down the lane.

Did the Minotaur skulk about
with in his lonely maze
like a poor ostracized
Boo Radley.

Sickly and deformed,
but worse in rumor than truth.
Does he long for a friend like
Scout or Theseus.

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Gathering of Fire

As the sun sets in the west,
Gods arrow splits the black
sky to the east.
The glow worm comes.
A red haze defines the horizon.
Trees crack and snap.
Monkey, tiger, and bear scream.
The Glow Worm roars.
The chieftain cowers
in his golden hoard.
The Priest demands alms
to appease.
The warrior kisses
wife and child goodbye.

The warrior runs
into the dark
that separates man
from the past.
His enemy the jaguar runs.
They meet in the dark
of the jungle.
Jaguar calls out a truce
and bounds away.

As warrior approaches
the glow worm, the air burns.
His skin, nostrils, and lungs burn.
He runs still.
His heart feels
fear.

Warrior reaches an impasse.
The glow worm has met him.
It is as large as the world.
It dances before him and
It consumes.
Warrior loses his self
in its beauty.
It speaks to him
and promises power
and life.

Warrior wakes
from the trance
by the burning scratch
of the drangon's claws
upon his face.
Warrior traces his fingers
across his broiled cheek.
Warrior strikes back.
His spear cuts.
A spray of hot blood flows.

Famous People Love Poems

There's no money in poetry, but then there's no poetry in money, either.
Robert Graves

Monday, April 2, 2012

Do the Fish Watch TV?

Do the fish watch tv?
Do they have the capacity
to long to be free?
They swim in the tank
on the side facing the screen.
As Kirk commands the enterprise
through far off galaxies,
do the fish watch tv?
In their peaceful prison
with no demands,
do the fish long to be free?

Famous People Love Poems

All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling.
Oscar Wilde

Sunday, April 1, 2012

The Beginning

The door is opened
and the steps are taken.
I pat myself down
rechecking wallet and keys.

The page is empty
and the pen is in hand.
I scratch my head
rechecking inspiration.

Her blouse is opened
and tongue is moistened.
I paw at her form
searching for love.

Famous People Love Poems

A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness.
Robert Frost