The Journey Poetry Series Quotes

Consume the horizon and then examine the sky,
Digest all the questions and ask yourself why."
~James Lagoski~ ~ James Lagoski

Mornings sunrise is yesterdays farewell"
~James Lagoski~ ~ James Lagoski

THE THINGS POETS & WRITERS DO THAT I LOVE
Listen to the Ancestors
Acknowledge their influences
Trust their gut-feelings and act on them
Maintain openness.
Play
Dance with languages
Be bold
Refuse servility
Avoid arrogance
Embrace the unknown
Love the journey
Respect one's fellow journeyers ~ Billy Marshall Stoneking

Even the common things he carried with him - the food and the brandy and the loaded pistol - took on exactly that concrete and material poetry which a child feels when he takes a gun upon a journey or a bun with him to bed. ~ G.K. Chesterton

All I ever really wanted to do was arouse souls through my writing and enjoy my journey to becoming one with myself and with the world. ~ Terry A. O'Neal

The best poems take long journeys. I like poetry best that journeys
while remaining in the human scale
to the other world, which may be a place as easily overlooked as a bee's wing ~ Robert Bly

It's 4am again and I'm just getting started. People are boring and I want to burn with excitement or anger and bleed, bleed through my words. I want to get all fucked up and write real and raw and ugly and beautifully. I bet you're sleeping safe and calm, and you can stay there, it's safer there, and you wouldn't stand one night on this journey my mind wanders off to every night you close your eyes. I'll stay here one day and I will never come down.
I promise I can fly before I hit the ground.
It doesn't even hurt anymore.
I swear, it doesn't hurt. ~ Charlotte Eriksson

And, of course, that is what all of this is - all of this: the one song, ever changing, ever reincarnated, that speaks somehow from and to and for that which is ineffable within us and without us, that is both prayer and deliverance, folly and wisdom, that inspires us to dance or smile or simply to go on, senselessly, incomprehensibly, beatifically, in the face of mortality and the truth that our lives are more ill-writ, ill-rhymed and fleeting than any song, except perhaps those songs - that song, endlesly reincarnated - born of that truth, be it the moon and June of that truth, or the wordless blue moan, or the rotgut or the elegant poetry of it. That nameless black-hulled ship of Ulysses, that long black train, that Terraplane, that mystery train, that Rocket '88', that Buick 6 - same journey, same miracle, same end and endlessness. ~ Nick Tosches

The journey is to find our way back to the start, And seek the future in our past, For far into the distance I see someone like me, Trying to figure out the same old lie that life is… ~ Piyush Rohankar

...then we'll journey
until we find the world in which we both fit.
And when the path grows too dark to see even
the bright parts of me, have faith in the sound
of my voice. I'm here. I'm still the one leading. ~ Paige Lewis

I'm sure you've heard people talk about their Heart's Desire - well that's a load of rot. Hearts are idiots. They're big and squishy and full of daft dreams. They flounce off to write poetry and moon at folk who aren't worth the mooning. Bones are the ones that have to make the journey, fight the monster, kneel before whomever is big on kneeling these days. Bones do the work for the heart's grand plans. Bones know what you need. Hearts only know want. ~ Catherynne M Valente

Someone, somewhere, needs to hear what you have to say.
We all share this wondrous planet, called earth.
And inevitably, we all must journey through the darkness.
Many people don't survive, but you can help! ~ Delano Johnson

I want you. I want you inside and out. The parts you cover with laughter. The depth you shrug off with indifference. I want you. I want you to take me to the place you've hidden your heart. I want to walk by your side on this journey. You're worth it. We're worth it. Because... I want you. ~ Alfa Holden

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice --
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do --
determined to save
the only life you could save. ~ Mary Oliver

breath,
life after seven decades plus three years
is a lot of breathing. seventy three years on this
earth is a lot of taking in and giving out, is a
life of coming from somewhere and for many a bunch
of going nowhere.

how do we celebrate a poet who has created
music with words for over fifty years, who has
showered magic on her people, who has redefined
poetry into a black world exactness
thereby giving the universe an insight into
darkroads?

just say she interprets beauty and wants to
give life, say she is patient with phoniness
and doesn't mind people calling her gwen or sister.
say she sees the genius in our children, is visionary
about possibilities, sees as clearly as ray charles and
stevie wonder, hears like determined elephants looking
for food. say that her touch is fine wood, her memory
is like an african roadmap detailing adventure and
clarity, yet returning to chicago's south evans
to record the journey. say her voice is majestic
and magnetic as she speaks in poetry, rhythms, song
and spirited trumpets, say she is dark skinned,
melanin rich, small-boned, hurricane-willed,
with a mind like a tornado redefining the landscape.

life after seven decades plus three years
is a lot of breathing.
gwendolyn, gwen, sister g has
not disappointed our expectations.
in the middle
Haki R. Madhubuti

The imagination works not so much through inspiration as through perseverance. One must slog through the false starts, spot the wrong words and hold out for the right ones, and above all, be vigilant about staying on the path of revision, no matter how uncomfortable or even painful the journey might become. ~ Kathleen Norris

They say "The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step'"

Get up and take that step!

Take baby steps if you want but go for it,

Wait no longer…START IT! ~ Akanksha Wadhavkar ....Author Of Motivational Poems For Starlit Souls

Life without strife is a rose without thorns.
Alive as one is thriving today towards tomorrow,
Nowhere is the past but simply a school of memory.
Dreams, wishes, goals then becomes a wheel of "wills,"
Spirit of a unique being on each soul breathing.
Care to ponder some matter or another?
Awareness sliding towards discovery gliding…
Peace, contentment, fulfillment,
Enwrapped like a mirage enchantment.
Soaring freely, excitingly, happily home-love-bound!


Over precious moments in a breathing of a soul,
Flowing high emotions, feelings, hearts in bliss.


All around any season of one's existence, one asks:
"Anyone out there?
A heart of a soul that didn't harden?
A touch of a soul that didn't hurt?
A life of a soul that didn't love?"


Sands of time, rough, warm, indefinite,
simply spreading, transforming, mounting.
Oasis of a soul from a desert journey,
flourishing with endless beauty and security.
Utmost bliss, fulfillment and contentment,
under covers a struggling, hopeful soul,
Laboring service, living justice,
loving peace and tranquillity passed on to humanity!� ~ Angelica Hopes

Loneliness of heart
In the still of the night my heart doth cry out, who can hear it for time is far spent. In the darkness in the shadow of the depth I find isolation and fear ... ~ M.I. Ghostwriter

Do not try to save
the whole world
or do anything grandiose.
Instead, create
a clearing
in the dense forest
of your life
and wait there
patiently,
until the song
that is yours alone to sing
falls into your open cupped hands
and you recognize and greet it.
Only then will you know
how to give yourself
to this world so worthy of rescue. ~ Martha Postlethwaite

The Layers

I have walked through many lives,
some of them my own,
and I am not who I was,
though some principle of being
abides, from which I struggle
not to stray.
When I look behind,
as I am compelled to look
before I can gather strength
to proceed on my journey,
I see the milestones dwindling
toward the horizon
and the slow fires trailing
from the abandoned camp-sites,
over which scavenger angels
wheel on heavy wings.
Oh, I have made myself a tribe
out of my true affections,
and my tribe is scattered!
How shall the heart be reconciled
to its feast of losses?
In a rising wind
the manic dust of my friends,
those who fell along the way,
bitterly stings my face.
Yet I turn, I turn,
exulting somewhat,
with my will intact to go
wherever I need to go,
and every stone on the road
precious to me.
In my darkest night,
when the moon was covered
and I roamed through wreckage,
a nimbus-clouded voice
directed me:
"Live in the layers,
not on the litter."
Though I lack the art
to decipher it,
no doubt the next chapter
in my book of transformations
is already written.
I am not done with my changes. ~ Stanley Kunitz

Men can do nothing without the make-believe of a
beginning. Even science, the strict measurer, is obliged to start
with a make-believe unit, and must fix on a point in the stars'
unceasing journey when his sidereal clock shall pretend that time
is at Nought. His less accurate grandmother Poetry has always been
understood to start in the middle; but on reflection it appears
that her proceeding is not very different from his; since Science,
too, reckons backward as well as forward, divides his unit into
billions, and with his clock-finger at Nought really sets off
in medias res. No retrospect will take us to the true
beginning; and whether our prologue be in heaven or on earth, it is
but a fraction of that all-presupposing fact with which our story
sets out. ~ George Eliot

Poetry for me has been a long pilgrimage, a journey and a growing relationship with the unknown. ~ David Whyte

Hopefully, you will glimpse something of your own life's journey and with Elemental's Power of Illuminated Love, possibly recognize and celebrate something you had not been able to recognize or celebrate before. ~ Luther E. Vann

SEA OF LIFE

This is not the end, my friend.
Just as the ocean sings songs to infinity
Our friendship too will flow onward
Until the day one of us
Turns and leaves
And the seasons will turn too
As our shells
As they return back to sand
And the tides that brought us
Forth
Will take us back
Again.

I will never leave you, my friend.
Every time you see a wave rushing to
Meet another,
Two friends unite.
Every time you see a wave crashing,
Two friends depart.
The journey will go on, my friend.
Our memories are recorded
In seashells
To show and tell
The lessons learned
In these heavens and hells
Part of this sea of life -
And when the tide is right,
We shall cross paths again
When the ocean sings our song.

Poetry by Suzy Kassem ~ Suzy Kassem

Although Travels with Charley is replete with whimsical vignettes, charming dialogue, and lyrical descriptions of the natural landscape that often rise to the level of poetry, there is beneath its surface a sense of disenchantment that turns, eventually, into barely suppressed anger. Steinbeck seems never quite able to bring himself to say that he was truly and often disgusted by what he saw on his journey, but the reader is left with that impression. One puts down this book aware of how remarkably prophetic it really was, and how America continues to wrestle with the problems raised in its pages. ~ John Steinbeck

An old man, going a lone highway,
Came, at the evening, cold and gray,
To a chasm, vast, and deep, and wide,
Through which was flowing a sullen tide.

The old man crossed in the twilight dim;
The sullen stream had no fear for him;
But he turned, when safe on the other side,
And built a bridge to span the tide.

"Old man," said a fellow pilgrim, near,
"You are wasting strength with building here;
Your journey will end with the ending day;
You never again will pass this way;
You've crossed the chasm, deep and wide-
Why build you this bridge at the evening tide?"

The builder lifted his old gray head:
"Good friend, in the path I have come," he said,
"There followeth after me today,
A youth, whose feet must pass this way.

This chasm, that has been naught to me,
To that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be.
He, too, must cross in the twilight dim;
Good friend, I am building this bridge for him. ~ Will Allen Dromgoole

In the end we're all on a journey of sorts.
We wait for a sign or something that attracts our attention. Look for a deeper meaning to it all. That's what poetry is for.

Searching. ~ R.M. Engelhardt

I write because…

I write because I love the art and the magic of Literature.

I write because it keeps me safe, sane, and connected to you.

I write because it takes me to the places I want to go and those who wish to join me in the journey; may grasp my hand and my heart; in this stroll through this moment of time.

I write because when no one was there, the word was there: The word has always been and always will be the preeminent being in my universe.

I write because it allows me; to allow you to be understood and we are joined for a moment in time.

I do not write because it comes from a place of grammatical perfection; free of line breaks in perfected poetry; for my history is one of line breaks and imperfections.

I do not come to you from a place of polished and perfected; educated and critiqued.

No! I come to you from a place of raw, real, gutsy, and riveting. What I give you is raw, real, gutsy and riveting; with all of its imperfections and inconsistencies.

You have been touched, you have been curious, and you have been intrigued; you have come back looking, longing, expecting or not…

But then suddenly you were surprised; surprised that you could be moved; surprised that your preconceived ideas had been shattered by one who writes because… ~ Suzanne Steele

Sea Prayer was inspired by the story of Alan Kurdi, the three-year-old Syrian refugee who drowned in the Mediterranean Sea trying to reach the Safety in Europe in 2015.

In the year after Alan's death, 4,176 others died or went missing attempting that same journey. ~ Khaled Hosseini

I knew he was the one when he mended my wings and looked forward to where they would take me. Embrace those who encourage your growth... who don't fear the journey into Wonderland, Neverland, Whereverland. ~ Melody Lee

Form serves us best when it works as an obstruction to baffle us and deflect our intended course. It may be that when we no longer know what to do we have come to our real work and that when we no longer know which way to go we have begun our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. ~ Wendell Berry

Science and art, or by the same token, poetry and prose differ from one another like a journey and an excursion. The purpose of the journey is its goal, the purpose of an excursion is the process. ~ Franz Grillparzer

Within a raindrop there must be a heart- a heart that weeps the pain of longing. Look at her embracing her beloved and disappearing unto his yearning, but once again to set journey to the skies!

O dear, so is our union, a short while in the beautiful home named earth; but we shall continue, until the last drop water drains into the earth and there are no more rays of sun kissing these tender leaves of green!

And at last when the terrain shatters onto the Milky Way as tiny particles, O dear, remember, we will embrace once again to make a planet, a planet of love! ~ Preeth Nambiar

Don't forget to collect the memories on your journey. Remember, if you only focus on your destination, you will miss out on the benefits of the journey. ~ Tanya R. Liverman

To whom do I owe the power behind my voice, what strength I have become, yeasting up like sudden blood from under the bruised skin's blister?
My father leaves his psychic print upon me, silent, intense, and unforgiving. But his is a distant lightning. Images of women flaming like torches adorn and define the borders of my journey, stand like dykes between me and the chaos. It is the images of women, kind and cruel, that lead me home. ~ Audre Lorde

Ithaka

As you set out for Ithaka
hope the voyage is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
angry Poseidon - don't be afraid of them:
you'll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
wild Poseidon - you won't encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

Hope the voyage is a long one.
May there be many a summer morning when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you come into harbors seen for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind -
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to gather stores of knowledge from their scholars.

Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you are destined for.
But do not hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you are old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.

Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you would not have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.Constantinos P. Cavafy

Experience Journey Life Poetry Wisdom