When someone shows you who they are
believe them; the first time.

- Maya Angelou

No help for that

there is a place in the heart that
will never be filled

a space

and even during the
best moments
and
the greatest
times

we will know it

we will know it
more than
ever

there is a place in the heart that
will never be filled

and

we will wait
and
wait

in that
space.

– Charles Bukowski 

In time of daffodils

in time of daffodils(who know
the goal of living is to grow)
forgetting why,remembering how

in time of lilacs who proclaim
the aim of walking is to dream
remembering so(forgetting seem)

in time of roses(who amaze
our now and here with paradise)
forgetting if,remembering yes

in time of all sweet things beyond
whatever mind may comprehend,
remember seek (forgetting find)
and in a mystery to be
(when time from time shall set us free)
forgetting me, remember me
- e. e. Cummings

Why did you vanish
into empty sky?
Even the fragile snow,
when it falls,
falls in this world.

- Izumi Shikibu

Mad girl's Love Song

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

- Sylvia Plath

Whatever you now find weird, ugly, uncomfortable and nasty about a new medium will surely become its signature. CD distortion, the jitteriness of digital video, the crap sound of 8-bit - all of these will be cherished and emulated as soon as they can be avoided. It’s the sound of failure: so much modern art is the sound of things going out of control, of a medium pushing to its limits and breaking apart. 
The distorted guitar sound is the sound of something too loud for the medium supposed to carry it. 
The blues singer with the cracked voice is the sound of an emotional cry too powerful for the throat that releases it. 
The excitement of grainy film, of bleached-out black and white, is the excitement of witnessing events too momentous for the medium assigned to record them.

- Brian Eno
From A Year with Swollen Appendices

If nobody speaks of remarkable things

You must always look with both of your eyes and listen with both of your ears. He says this is a very big world and there are many many things you could miss if you are not careful. There are remarkable things all the time, right in front of us, but our eyes have like the clouds over the sun and our lives are paler and poorer if we do not see them for what they are.
If nobody speaks of remarkable things, how can they be called remarkable?

– Jon McGregor
From If Nobody speaks of Remarkable Things

After all, the only rule of travel is,
don’t come back the way you went. 
Come a new way.

- Anne Carson
From Plainwater: Essays and Poetry; The Anthropology of Water.

I'm beginning to think
that maybe it's not just how much you love someone. 
Maybe what matters is
who you are when you're with them.

- Anne Tyler

The man who named my narrow bed was a quiet person, but he had good questions.
“I suppose you do love me, in your way,” 
I said to him one night close to dawn when we lay on the narrow bed. 
“And how else should I love you—in your way?” he asked. 
I am still thinking about that.

- Anne Carson
From Plainwater: Essays and Poetry

Not waving but drowning

Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he’s dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.

- Stevie Smith

True love will find you in the end
You'll find out just who was your friend
Don't be sad, I know you will
But don't give up until

True love will find you in the end
This is a promise with a catch
Only if you're looking can it find you
'Cause true love is searching too

But how can it recognize you
If you don't step out into the light, the light
Don't be sad I know you will
Don't give up until
True love will find you in the end

- Daniel Johnston

My little beast, my eyes, my favorite stolen egg.
Listen.
To live is to be marked.
To live is to change,
to acquire the words of a story, a
nd that is the only celebration we mortals really know.
In perfect stillness, frankly, I’ve only found sorrow.

– Barbara Kingsolver
From The Poisonwood Bible

A great fire

A great fire burns within me,
but no-one stops to warm themselves at it
and passers-by only see a wisp of smoke.

- Vincent Van Gogh

I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded;
not with the fanfare of epiphany,
but with pain gathering its things,
packing up,
and slipping away unannounced
in the middle of the night.

- Khaled Hosseini
From The Kite Runner

Eventually something you love is going to be taken away.
And then you will fall to the floor crying.
And then, however much later, it is finally happening to you:
you’re falling to the floor crying thinking,
“I am falling to the floor crying,”
but there’s an element of the ridiculous to it —
you knew it would happen and, even worse,
while you’re on the floor crying
you look at the place where the wall meets the floor
and you realize you didn’t paint it very well.

- Richard Siken

Wishing is okay,
but asking is faster.

- Pat Palmer
From Liking Myself, a children’s book

If

If you are in the garden, I will dress myself in leaves.
If you are in the sea I will slide into that smooth blue nest,
I will talk fish,
I will adore salt.

- Mary Oliver
From section 7 of “Rhapsody,” in The Leaf and The Cloud: A Poem

A hand is shaped for what it holds or makes.

A hand is shaped for what it holds or makes.
Time takes what's handed to it then - warm bread, a stone,
a child whose fingers touch the page to keep her place.

Beloved, grown old separately, your face
shows me the changes on my own.
I see the histories it holds, the argument it makes

against the thresh of trees, the racing clouds, the race
of birds and sky birds always lose:
the lines have ranged, but not the cheek's strong bone.
My finger touching there recall that place.

Once we were one.  Then what time did, and hands, erased
us from the future we had owned.
For some, the future holds what hands release, not made.

We make a bridge.  We walked it.  Laced
night's sounds with passion.
Owls' pennywhistles, after, took our place.

Wasps leave their nest. Wind takes the papery case.
Our wooden house, less easily undone,
now houses others.  A life is shaped by what it holds or makes.
I make these words for what they can't replace

- Jane Hirshfield
From Come, Thief

Roses

Everyone now and again wonders about
those questions that have no ready
answer: first cause, God’s existence,
what happens when the curtain goes
down and nothing stops it, not kissing
not going to the mall, not the Super
Bowl.
“Wild roses,” I said to them one morning.
“Do you have the answers? And if you do,
would you tell me?”

The roses laughed softly. “Forgive us,”
they said. “But as you can see, we are
just now entirely busy being roses.”

- Mary Oliver