Robert Creeley QUOTES

1 " What am I to myself
that must be remembered,
insisted upon
so often? "

― Robert Creeley , Selected Poems of Robert Creeley

2 " The century was well along

when I came in
and now that it's ending,
I realize it won't
be long.

But couldn't it all have been
a little nicer,
as my mother'd say. Did it
have to kill everything in sight,

Did right always have to be so wrong? "

― Robert Creeley , Selected Poems, 1945–2005

3 " Love, if you love me,
lie next to me.
Be for me, like rain,
the getting out

of the tiredness, the fatuousness, the semi-
lust of intentional indifference.
Be wet
with a decent happiness. "

― Robert Creeley

4 " I know this body is impatient.
I know I constitute only a meager voice and mind.
Yet I loved, I love.
I want no sentimentality.
I want no more than home. "

― Robert Creeley

5 " Moon, moon,
when you leave me alone
all the darkness is
an utter blackness,

a pit of fear,
a stench,
hands unreasonable
never to touch.

But I love you.
Do you love me.
What to say
when you see me. "

― Robert Creeley , Selected Poems of Robert Creeley

6 " The awful thing, as a kid reading, was that you came to the end of the story, and that was it. I mean, it would be heartbreaking that there was no more of it. "

― Robert Creeley

7 " What am I to myself
that must be remembered,
insisted upon
so often? Is it

that never the ease,
even the hardness,
of rain falling
will have for me

something other than this,
something not so insistent—
am I to be locked in this
final uneasiness. "

― Robert Creeley , The Collected Poems of Robert Creeley, 1945-1975

8 " Still, no one finally knows what a poet is supposed either to be or to do. Especially in this country, one takes on the job—because all that one does in America is considered a "job"—with no clear sense as to what is required or where one will ultimately be led. In that respect, it is as particular an instance of a "calling" as one might point to. For years I've kept in mind, "Many are called but few are chosen." Even so "called," there were no assurances that one would be answered. "

― Robert Creeley

9 " When I speak, I speaks. "

― Robert Creeley

10 " Thought is a process of work,
joy is an issue of work "

― Robert Creeley

11 " Memories

Hello, duck,
in yellow

cloth stuffed from
inside out,

little
pillow. "

― Robert Creeley , Just in Time

12 " I’ll win the way
I always do
by being gone
when they come.

When they look, they’ll see
nothing of me
and where I am
they’ll not know.

This, I thought, is my way
and right or wrong
it’s me. Being dead, then,
I’ll have won completely. "

― Robert Creeley , Memory Gardens

13 " Oh stay awhile.
sad, sagging flesh
and bones gone brittle.

Stay in place,
aged face, teeth,
don’t go.

Inside and out
the flaccid change
of bodily parts,

mechanics of action,
mind’s collapsing
habits, all

echo here
in mottled skin, blurred eye,
reiterated mumble.

Lift to the vacant air
some sigh, some sign
I’m still inside. "

― Robert Creeley , Windows

14 " Bless
something small
but infinite
and quiet. "

― Robert Creeley , The Collected Poems of Robert Creeley, 1945-1975

15 " The tree cannot walk, all its going must be violence. They listen to the saw cut, the roots scream. And in eating even a stalk of celery there will be pathetic screaming. "

― Robert Creeley , Words

16 " Let’s build a house of human pieces, arms and hair, not telling any one. "

― Robert Creeley , Words

17 " How dear
you are

to me, how love-
ly all your
body is, how

all these
senses do
commingle, so

that in your very
arms I still
can think of you. "

― Robert Creeley , Selected Poems, 1945–2005

18 " What's inside,
what's the place
apart from
this one? "

― Robert Creeley , Selected Poems, 1945–2005

19 " The Tunnel"

Tonight, nothing is long enough—
time isn’t.
Were there a fire,
it would burn now.

Were there a heaven,
I would have gone long ago.
I think that light
is the final image.

But time reoccurs,
love—and an echo.
A time passes
love in the dark. "

― Robert Creeley , The Collected Poems of Robert Creeley, 1945-1975

20 " A Token"

My lady
fair with
soft
arms, what

can I say to
you—words, words
as if all
worlds were there. "

― Robert Creeley , The Collected Poems of Robert Creeley, 1945-1975

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