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Stag's Leap: Poems QUOTES

Stag's Leap: Poems QUOTES

1 " each hour is a room of shame, and I am
swimming, swimming, holding my head up,
smiling, joking, ashamed, ashamed,
like being naked with the clothed, or being
a child, having to try to behave
while hating the terms of your life. "

― Sharon Olds , Stag's Leap: Poems

2 " I've said that he and I had been crazy
for each other. But maybe my ex and I were not
crazy for each other. Maybe we
were sane for each other, as if our desire
was almost not even personal -
it was personal, but that hardly mattered, since there
seemed to be no other woman
or man in the world. "

― Sharon Olds , Stag's Leap: Poems

3 " let’s part
equals, as we were in every bed, pure
equals of the earth "

― Sharon Olds , Stag's Leap: Poems

4 " I did not know him, I knew my idea
of him. "

― Sharon Olds , Stag's Leap: Poems

5 " I did not deceive him, he did not deceive me,
I did not leave him, he did not leave me,
I freed him, he freed me. "

― Sharon Olds , Stag's Leap: Poems

6 " it is
forbidden to love where we are not loved "

― Sharon Olds , Stag's Leap: Poems

7 " Some people think I should
be over my ex by now — maybe
I thought I might have been over him more
by now. Maybe I’m half over who he
was, but not who I thought he was, and not
over the wound, sudden deathblow
as if out of nowhere, though it came from the core
of our life together. "

― Sharon Olds , Stag's Leap: Poems

8 " He fell in love with her because I
didn't suit him anymore -
nor him, me, though I could not see it, but he
saw it for me. "

― Sharon Olds , Stag's Leap: Poems

9 " If I could
choose, a place to die,”
it would never have been in your arms, old darling "

― Sharon Olds , Stag's Leap: Poems

10 " And you couldn’t say,
could you, that the touch you had from me
was other than the touch of one
who could love for life—whether we were suited
or not—for life, like a sentence. And now that I
consider, the touch that I had from you
became not the touch of the long view, but like the
tolerant willingness of one
who is passing through. "

― Sharon Olds , Stag's Leap: Poems

11 " as if languagelessness was a step up, in evolution, from the chatter of consciousness. "

― Sharon Olds , Stag's Leap: Poems

12 " There Was an Old Woman Called Nothing-at-All,
Who Lived in a Dwelling Exceedingly Small;
A Man Stretched His Mouth to the Utmost Extent,
And Down at One Gulp House and Old Woman Went. "

― Sharon Olds , Stag's Leap: Poems

13 " I want to relearn the intervals, to
journey with a man among the thirds and fifths,
augumented, diminshed, with a light touch,
sforzando, rallentando, agitato, the usual
adores and dotes - and of course what I reaaly
want is some low notes. "

― Sharon Olds , Stag's Leap: Poems

14 " And sometimes I feel as if,
already, I am not here— "

― Sharon Olds , Stag's Leap: Poems

15 " and my job is to eat the whole car
of my anger, part by part, some parts
ground down to steel-dust. "

― Sharon Olds , Stag's Leap: Poems

16 " In his gaze,
rooms of the dead; halls of loss; fog-
emerald; driven, dirty-rice snow:
he was in there somewhere, I looked for him,
and he gave me the gift, he let me in,
knowing he would never once, in this world or in
any other, have to do it again,
and I saw him, not as he really was, I was
still without the strength of anger, but I
saw him see me, even now
that dropping down into trust's affection
in his gaze, and I held it, some seconds, quiet,
and I said, Good-bye, and he said Good-bye "

― Sharon Olds , Stag's Leap: Poems

17 " One of us
maybe a little too much a hunter,
the other a little too polar of affection,
polar of summer mysteriousness,
magnetic in reticent mourning. "

― Sharon Olds , Stag's Leap: Poems

18 " Minute by minute, I do not get up and just
go to him— "

― Sharon Olds , Stag's Leap: Poems

19 " It is what I do now: not go, not
see or touch. "

― Sharon Olds , Stag's Leap: Poems

20 " My body may never learn
not to yearn for that one "

― Sharon Olds , Stag's Leap: Poems