The army has nearly written a poem:
You’ll now need a permit just to stay home

Not uplifting, but eerily precise and unsettling.

I was away for a few days, so I just read your response.

I first read this e e cumming’s quote when I was in high school — and the words pierced my heart.

I was the lead singer and lyricist in a rock band I’d formed with some friends. It was 1964, and though I was a rocker, I was also the product of 1950’s Catholicism. In other words I was repressed, guilt-ridden by my humanistic tendencies, and caught up in male superiority, as well as the ‘macho’ affectations of the times.

It was then I discovered and came to love the writings of e e cummings, as well as Kerouac, Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, and similar others — I simply loved the beat and avant-garde writers. The lyrics I wrote for my band, reflected the free nature of these writers, but I always felt I was personally insincere — not really authentic to my words.

This quote opened my mind, my heart, and my spirit to finally embrace who I was. In addition to being an athlete and a rocker, I was also a poet, an artist, and a sensitive male — who found the pseudo-misogynistic posturing of jocks and rockers of that era to be offensive.

This quote turned my life around and I began to embrace my true feelings, in all aspects of my life — to the best of my abilities. It is why I write today, openly about my life and feelings — with a special love of poetry. It’s why I am an artist, why I’ve raised my sons and daughter to follow their hearts — no mater where it leads them.

It is why I’ve maintained my sense of wonder, staying alert that I not surrender it to the pretenses of ‘maturity’. This quote set me free…

…rob

This is a great quote! Have you written to it? If so, I’d love to read what you wrote. Maybe this is how you live your life? Thanks for sharing.

e e cummings

Nathan, does Rilke’s quote explain why I want to squeeze the Piillsbury Doughboy until he pops? Just kidding. And then we have Keat’s line, Truth is beauty and bueaty is truth. Yikes, quotes all over the place, contradicting each other!

Donald, you could break up his line and turn the quote into a found poem, as long as you credit your source!

Thanks for responding, Linda. I’ll check out your poem with mystery author.

Here’s a poem based on two from my favorite AUTHOR of all.
CROSSROADS, on NICKERS AND INK

“If this earth should ever be destroyed, it will be by desire, by the lust of pleasure and self-gratification.”

Can you see, can you feel….. the poetry in it?

Bugeja’s book is one of my favourites, every poet should read it!

I collect quotes for future inspiration and sometimes have written poems directly inspired by quotes.