Scott C. Holstad > Quotes

“We wake up, breathe, live life often against our wishes and our better judgement. We console ourselves by telling ourselves this is no fault of our own but that doesn’t take away the reality of the pain, the streaming dreams, the utter shock of life, the shattered pieces of survival.”
― Scott C. Holstad, Cells

“Fuck the sweats, I want the world. No rhyming for me, no structured bullshit, I want to spread out, feel the bullets whistle past.”
― Scott C. Holstad

“i often wonder at what point my thoughts cease to be my reality and simply merge with my dreams to become my fiction, my life.”
― Scott C. Holstad, Distant Visions, Again and Again

“a beautiful girl spoke to me today thru little honey’d whispers dreaming icicles streams of words mouth moving saying much in little tones traveling passionately into distant lands far off hopes stranger’s arms a hoped-for death told her secret.”
― Scott C. Holstad, Grungy Ass Swaying

“Poets may be the “unacknowledged legislators” but I don’t know if we’re that important. My fear overwhelms me at times; I gave you my fear, a withered gift. You are the true poet of the family. You gave me the cry of a baby in its mother’s arms, cotton candy at the circus, John Cage exhibits at the museum, lying under the light of the full moon. You gave me Fellini films and old Romances, a glass of Burgandy in a darkened restaurant where lovers cling to hope of passion and contentment. You gave me hope and love, but most of all, you gave me poetry.”
― Scott C. Holstad, Places

“what society dictates
we consume
cattle gathering around
learning devices called
television
mouths opening wider
while addictive morsels
of consumerism are
violently jammed into
us
and we lose more
bits and pieces
of our collective identity
daily”
― Scott C. Holstad, Hang Gliding on X

“do you hate yourself i wonder? you can’t expect others to accept you until you’ve been able to accept yourself. sometimes i think i can really feel the pain. i’ve been there, i live there. but if you can make it through, nothing will beat you. you know the madhouses are full of emotional suicides. let’s just take it day by day.”
― Scott C. Holstad, Grungy Ass Swaying

“No one is asked whether they wish/
To be born. Everyone is asked to die. /
Life is comprised of the noisy silence /
One makes of it.”
― Scott C. Holstad, Shadows Before the Maiming

“i am nothing but bits of paper, grains of sand pressed hot against hard flesh, campfires burning bright against the still night. i am man‑flesh human life walking ~ dreaming, twitching under the noonday sun.”
― Scott C. Holstad

“I woke last night from a nightmare in which I saw a malignant society of pathological liars racked with insecurities, consumed by guilt, screaming for violence and I noticed I was sweating most profusely as I thanked the heavens above that it was only a dream before turning on the light to get a cigarette.”
― Scott C. Holstad

“lately I’ve been feeling like I’ve been mellowing out a bit and at those times my wife lovely reassures me by saying, no, you’re still the same uptight bastard you’ve always been”
― Scott C. Holstad, Dancing with the Lights Out

“Two aphorisms I advocate and live by: 1) "Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it." (Actually, this is a common mis-quotation from the source, George Santayana, who wrote specifically in Vol. I, Reason in Common Sense from his book, The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." 2) "NO religion can stand up to two words: PROVE IT!" (Source unknown).”
― Scott C. Holstad

“of course i have learned over the years that my fantasies are always better than reality and i leave it at that.”
― Scott C. Holstad, Junction City

“today, suffering from drawn out hangover, the world ran dry. Bukowski died and one third of the world's winemakers will go broke.”
― Scott C. Holstad, Places

“I'll be damned if my family, uncles, cousins fought, bled, sacrificed all on foreign beaches to free millions of people being tortured and killed by insane genocidal fascists AS WELL AS trying to keep the rest of the world safe from these evil monsters, only to find some decades later, flags bearing Swastikas being planted in American soil, if not eventually American political buildings and agencies!”
― Scott C. Holstad

“i allowed you to destroy me, my self-confidence, my ego, my identity as a human being and as a man. for years i was a shadow of my former self. the pain you caused was brutal and intense but i have a new life and a new incarnation and you’re hardly worth thinking about anymore and being free at last of your clutches, I have a new world to look forward to.”
― Scott C. Holstad, Junction City

“caffeine fixture
liquid buzz
kinda makes the
juices curl
inside and
out
like havin
a pair of
powdery legs
wrapped
tightly
around
your neck –
strong
and just
a little
wicked”
― Scott C. Holstad, Distant Visions, Again and Again

“when it’s time to break down and you’re lying in bed fighting off the urge to scream, when you’re lying there shivering, it’s not the memories that keep you going. instead it’s the dreams and the cats blaring evil and godlike into the blankness. at times like this, it’s best just to sit back and let what is be.”
― Scott C. Holstad, Distant Visions, Again and Again

“anyway i saw it coming from the rooftops. they said the second coming was heading our way tomorrow’s world today force fed to us in a tobacco-colored spoon keep us entertained – content - oppressed. we prayed, friend, and they brought it down.”
― Scott C. Holstad, Big Head Press Broadside Poem Collection

“Winter, and You are the only Possibilities in this World. Paper, pen, Teeth, bones, and skin, The future is now. How will you make This work, snowflakes Against the window, Every ounce of pain Like blood on my lips.”
― Scott C. Holstad

“you look your woman in the eye and kill her by telling her the truth or you turn away and let her see what she wants. i try not to shake too much when i turn the lights out and the sobbing begins”
― Scott C. Holstad, Big Head Press Broadside Poem Collection

“dancing with death when he whispers in your ear is a very erotic moment in a man’s life and it may not have happened yet for me but he’s sent his assistants many times to try me out. we’ve all been failures much to death’s disappointment”
― Scott C. Holstad, The Napalmed Soul

“The few who are ballsy enough to actually live wind up in madhouses, tortured by actuality.

We all wind up in the same place anyhow … food for unseeing worms.”
― Scott C. Holstad, Industrial Madness

“If I killed myself now would I make the papers would anyone care I already know the answer to that besides it’s irrelevant”
― Scott C. Holstad, Cells

“We share this moment not through touch but our eyes, yours brilliant, shining, willing, wanting to know feel the pain, understand, mine dead to the world, a bleak history of empty files”
― Scott C. Holstad

“I’ve wanted to die for a
long time and one day,
I’m going out like a
Texas lightning storm –
big, bold, beautiful,
deadly, dead and
done with.”
― Scott C. Holstad, Cells

“she said
i want you to
meet him
you'll like him
really

yeah
i thought
like car crash
broken glass
rusty razored underwear
barbed wire cheer
acid fear
like walking down
normandie
naked
nightly
like tiger claws 'n
earthquake falls
i'll
really relish meeting 'm.”
― Scott C. Holstad, Street Poems

“Like long lost love abandoned in forgotten letters, you lose yourself in others, and dream their dreams, become their aspirations. When you look in the mirror, you see a black blank picture of Them staring back and you vow not to before giving in once again.”
― Scott C. Holstad, Places

“I wish to walk arm in arm, hand in hand without your fears pervading, without my feeling that others are staring. I wish to lose the fog and retain you, your radiance, your strength, your essence.”
― Scott C. Holstad, Shadows Before the Maiming

“War is the true Nature of the world, a dog with matted fur lapping eagerly at the bloody
Niles, wagging its threadbare tail the entire time.”
― Scott C. Holstad, Industrial Madness