Bukowski Poetry Quotes

It got so bad that Al thought
maybe it was
him
so he went to a shrink
and asked
and the shrink said,
"you're one of the sanest men
I've ever met."
poor Al.
that made him feel
worse
than ever. ~ Charles Bukowski

crawled like a blind slug into the
web ~ Charles Bukowski

–you know, I've either had a family, a job,
something has always been in the
way
but now
I've sold my house, I've found this
place, a large studio, you should see the space and
the light.
for the first time in my life I'm going to have
a place and the time to
create."

no baby, if you're going to create
you're going to create whether you work
16 hours a day in a coal mine
or
you're going to create in a small room with 3 children
while you're on
welfare,
you're going to create with part of your mind and your body blown
away,
you're going to create blind
crippled
demented,
you're going to create with a cat crawling up your
back while
the whole city trembles in earthquake, bombardment,
flood and fire.

baby, air and light and time and space
have nothing to do with it
and don't create anything
except maybe a longer life to find
new excuses
for. ~ Charles Bukowski

I run with the hunted. ~ Charles Bukowski

We are all poets, really. ~ Walter Lowenfels

there's always been a little sadness inside my happiness.

i've never been able to separate the two. ~ AVA.

Psychoanalysis [...] overestimates the linguistic character of the unconscious. Dreaming is a pagan cinema. ~ Camille Paglia

I've written of you so often I think I've made you immortal. ~ Nichole McElhaney

Let her flower gracefully, No matter which garden she chooses to be in, No matter which season it is, No matter who the gardener is, Let there be admirers and lovers at her doorsteps, Let there be worshipers at her feet, Let there be love and let her be loved… ~ Piyush Rohankar

A word into the silence thrown always finds its echo somewhere where silence opens hidden lexicons. ~ Dejan Stojanovic

I would say there are different kinds of poems. There are things that poets in the history of poetry hit upon when they're very young that can never be outdone and it's a remarkable, strange experience when you think of say Arthur Rimbaud who write poetry between the ages of 17 and 21 whose career was over by the time he was 22. ~ Edward Hirsch

Gunn would be an important figure-rewarding, delightful, accomplished, enduring-in the history of English-language poetry even were his life not as fascinating as it now seems; he would be an important figure in the history of gay writing and in the history of transatlantic literary relations even were his poetry not so good as it is. With his life as it was and his works as they are, he's an obvious candidate for a volume of retrospective and critical essays, and this one is first-rate. ~ Stephen Burt

I had decided against religion a couple of years back. If it were true, it made fools out of people, or it drew fools. And if it weren't true, the fools were all the more foolish. ~ Charles Bukowski

We lose more than we ever gain, But this lust just never ends, So gather whatever you may today, Before time comes and takes everything away… ~ Piyush Rohankar

There is a point where the universe can deliver you from the verge of regret. I know your love for me will take you there. ~ Lawren Leo

I will always remember the way you spill your smile all over me like the rain. ~ Nichomachus

Had enough of my poetry yet? That's why they pay me to fight demons instead. ~ Charles Stross

Seal the borders
of my body to pain,
seal my eyes, mouth, belly
to any hunger not
my own.

I rename myself
America. No love
no grief in the world but mine. ~ Shailja Patel

We will spend the rest of the day inventing a kind of love that no longer exists in the world, a kind of love no army can pillage at the outposts, no rumor could bring to its knees like a traitor. ~ Richard Jackson

I'll always deny that I kissed her.
I was just whispering into her mouth. ~ Stephen Dunn

I belong with the trees,
the wind,
the earth beneath my feet.
I belong in the land of enchanting things.
But mostly,
I belong entwined in your kiss,
lost,
yet wild and free,
pure bliss,
like poetry. ~ Melody Lee

If I should have a daughter…"Instead of "Mom", she's gonna call me "Point B." Because that way, she knows that no matter what happens, at least she can always find her way to me. And I'm going to paint the solar system on the back of her hands so that she has to learn the entire universe before she can say "Oh, I know that like the back of my hand."

She's gonna learn that this life will hit you, hard, in the face, wait for you to get back up so it can kick you in the stomach. But getting the wind knocked out of you is the only way to remind your lungs how much they like the taste of air. There is hurt, here, that cannot be fixed by band-aids or poetry, so the first time she realizes that Wonder-woman isn't coming, I'll make sure she knows she doesn't have to wear the cape all by herself. Because no matter how wide you stretch your fingers, your hands will always be too small to catch all the pain you want to heal. Believe me, I've tried.

And "Baby," I'll tell her "don't keep your nose up in the air like that, I know that trick, you're just smelling for smoke so you can follow the trail back to a burning house so you can find the boy who lost everything in the fire to see if you can save him. Or else, find the boy who lit the fire in the first place to see if you can change him."

But I know that she will anyway, so instead I'll always keep an extra supply of chocolate and rain boats nearby, 'cause there is no heartbreak that chocolate can't fix ~ Sarah Kay

Listen to me boy,' the poet declared, 'here's a little piece of advice from me about what it takes to write. Buy a notebook. Sit down and write something on the first page - write whatever you like. A poem, a story, doesn't matter, just write. The next day, wake up, tear out that first page, rip it up, and throw it in the fire. Or in the garbage, all the same, the important thing is that you throw it out. The next day, write some more - again you'll be on the first page, right? On the third day, wake up, tear it out, crumple it up, and throw it out, then sit back down and write! You follow me? Keep going until you are out of pages in your notebook. Then go and buy a new notebook and start all over again . . . That's it. Somewhere around your tenth notebook you might have something worthwhile. ~ Hristo Karastoyanov

Inside your head you hear
a phone ringing, and when you open your eyes you're washing up
in a stranger's bathroom,
standing by the window in a yellow towel, only twenty minutes away
from the dirtiest thing you know.
All the rooms of the castle except this one, says someone, and suddenly
darkness,
suddenly only darkness.
In the living room, in the broken yard,
in the back of the car as the lights go by. In the airport
bathroom's gurgle and flush, bathed in a pharmacy of
unnatural light,
my hands looking weird, my face weird, my feet too far away. ~ Richard Siken

Until we say the truth, there can be no tenderness.
As long as there is desire, we will not be safe ~ Tony Hoagland

first seek ye the kingdom of pure practical intelligence

shreds of posters and headlines
shards of gramophone records feathers

lights shining arcs
the well-lit borders

when the rush-hour comes
and the hour of the pile-up
and the sounds of breaking steel-plate and people
are heard in the dark

when the journey is broken, no one is on the right road ~ Pentti Saarikoski

The first time I saw your face, my lips said, "hello" and my heart said, "that's your wife. ~ J.A. ANUM

A timid act may be more bold
than one would first assume,
for whispering truth is braver
than to silently resume. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

Under star-dark seas and skies of gold
Live those Above and those Below
They sing and weep, both high and deep
While over and under the ocean rolls ~ Ally Condie

I know many lives worth living. ~ Mary Oliver

I am too full of life
to be half-loved. ~ Ijeoma Umebinyuo

Nagorno Karabakh we sold, without the faintest sigh,
We auctioned off our factories until our wealth ran dry,
Now we are slaves or exiles, thieving strangers are our lords,
For whom our prostrate backs a wide and easy road affords. ~ Bextiyar Vahabzede

Nothing is lifeless
when the moon writes its screed
on the silvern sand silence
-From the poem:The Universe In Blossom ~ Munia Khan

It was quite a beautiful thing, the way we simply just came to be, with no effort or trying and slowly we found each other's hands in the dark. No chains or promises, just a simple sign of hope
that things will go on and get better
and that things and people and views are still out there, yet to be found. ~ Charlotte Eriksson

And I choose to be alone
Rather than wrapped in arms I could never need. ~ Merrit Malloy

I'd always loved poetry and I'd always loved writing music and composing music, but I hadn't thought of putting the two together until around that time. ~ Bruce Cockburn

We all wear scars -
find someone
who makes yours
feel beautiful ~ Atticus Poetry

The poet who walks by moonlight is conscious of a tide in his thought which is to be referred to lunar influence. ~ Henry David Thoreau

THE BEAUTY
Poetry is beautiful, in my eyes.
Its words are aged with wisdom.
A poets tears burn words, to vanish sighs,
As eternal as silence is sincere.
A sphinx pressed against the sky,
Is as pure as an angel's virginity.
The words of a poet articulates sound
Nor tears, nor laughter prohibits meaning.
Poets who speak wisely with conceit,
Interpret words beyond reason.
To consume the hour with extensive study;
Is admired for its esthetic beauty.
Poetry, the mirror image of perfection:
Meaningful text, burn words internally!
- Angela Khristin Brown ~ Angela Khristin Brown

If I can write just one poem that will turn the minds of a few to a more decent outlook...what does it matter if I compose a bad line or lose my reputation as a craftsman?...I used to think it very important to write only good poetry. Over and over I worked it to make it as flawless as I could. What does it matter now, when men are dying for their hopes and their ideals? If I live or die as a poet it won't matter, but anyone who believes in democracy and freedom and love and culture and peace ought to be busy now. He cannot wait for the tomorrow. ~ Nancy Milford

Perhaps it's my destiny to remain a book-keeper for ever and for poetry and literature to remain simply butterflies that alight on my head and merely underline my own ridiculousness by their very beauty. ~ Fernando Pessoa

I didn't want to deal in poetry. I got rid of that after a few months. ~ Tom Wesselmann

It is part of my creed that the only poetry is history, could we tell it right. ~ Thomas Carlyle

Poetry always runs away from you - it's very difficult to grasp it, and every time you read it, depending on your conditions, you will have a different grasp of it. Whereas with a novel, once you have read it, you have grasped it. ~ Abbas Kiarostami

Who knows what death, anxiety of the living,
Who knows what loneliness, end of the loving
I could say to myself of the love (I had):
Let it not be immortal, since it is flame
But let it be infinite while it lasts. ~ Vinicius De Moraes

Look to the past to help create the future. Look to science and to poetry. Combine innovation and interpretation. We need the best of both. And it is universities that best provide them. ~ Drew Gilpin Faust

And then, I have nature and art and poetry, and if that is not enough, what is enough? ~ Vincent Van Gogh

What needs my Shakespeare for his honoured bones,
The labor of an age in pilèd stones,
Or that his hallowed relics should be hid
Under a star-y-pointing pyramid?
Dear son of memory, great heir of fame,
What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name? ~ John Milton