Geoffrey Hill Quotes

Last days, last things, loom on: I write / to astonish myself. So much for all / plain speaking...

Not as we are but as we must appear,
contractual ghosts of pity; not as we
desire life, but as they would have us live,
set apart in timeless colloquy.
So it is required; so we bear witness,
despite ourselves, to what is beyond us,
each distant sphere of harmony forever
poised, unanswerable. It is without
consequence when we vaunt and suffer,
or if it is not, all echoes are the same
in such eternity. Then tell me, love,
how that should comfort us-or anyone
dragged half-unnerved out of this worldly place
crying to the end "I have not finished."
From 'Funeral Music

Platonic England, house of solitudes,
rests in its laurels and its injured stone

Finally coming to terms with Fathers Day. I blow as a Dad. I get it. No, I'm not an evil, abusive Father, it's just that while all my intentions and thoughts have been out of love for my kids, my actions and behaviour never measured up.

Take accessible to mean / acceptable, accommodating, openly servile.

Public toilets have a duty to be accessible, poetry does not.

It is not faithless
to stand without faith, keeping open
vigil at the site

fierce tea making

in time of war,

If we meet each other in hell, it's not hell.

I think art has a right - not an obligation - to be difficult if it wishes. And, since people generally go on from this to talk about elitism versus democracy, I would add that genuinely difficult art is truly democratic.

I wouldn't mind dispatching all 3 of my room mates vile felines in this apartment. Nasty beasts. I'm just afraid I wouldn't be able to sell "curiosity" as a serial killer.

Who now would thrust enquiry on / Beyond necessity of desire?

As estimated, you died. Things marched,
sufficient, to that end.
Just so much Zyklon and leather, patented
terror, so many routine cries.

Evil is not good's absence but gravity's
everlasting bedrock and its fatal chains
inert, violent, the suffrage of our days.

September fattens on vines. Roses flake from the wall. The smoke of harmless fires drifts to my eyes. This is plenty. This is more than enough.

Snooki is a bestselling author? Huh? What? I don't know if I should dumb down my book, shoot myself or find a publisher who'll settle for a rough draft written on a Pop-Tart and a coconut lotion handie..

The risen Christ! Once more
faith is upon us,
a jubilant brief keening
with respite:

Obedience, bitter joy,
the elements, clouds,
winds, louvres where the bell
makes its wild mouths:

Holy Rus – into the rain's
horizons, peacock-dyed
tail feathers of storm,
so it goes on.

We are difficult. Human beings are difficult. We're difficult to ourselves, we're difficult to each other. And we are mysteries to ourselves, we are mysteries to each other. One encounters in any ordinary day far more real difficulty than one confronts in the most "intellectual" piece of work. Why is it believed that poetry, prose, painting, music should be less than we are? Why does music, why does poetry have to address us in simplified terms, when if such simplification were applied to a description of our own inner selves we would find it demeaning?