Robert Creeley > Quotes

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“When I speak, I speaks.”
― Robert Creeley

“Memories

Hello, duck,
in yellow

cloth stuffed from
inside out,

little
pillow.”
― Robert Creeley, Just in Time

“Thought is a process of work,
joy is an issue of work”
― Robert Creeley

“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

“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

“... Now love also
becomes a reward so
remote from me I have
only made it with my mind.”
― Robert Creeley, The Collected Poems of Robert Creeley, 1945-1975

“Let’s build a house of human pieces, arms and hair, not telling any one.”
― Robert Creeley, Words

“Bless
something small
but infinite
and quiet.”
― Robert Creeley, The Collected Poems of Robert Creeley, 1945-1975

“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

“The plan is the body”
― Robert Creeley, Away

“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

“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 of Robert Creeley, 1945–2005

“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

“What am I to myself
that must be remembered,
insisted upon
so often?”
― Robert Creeley, Selected Poems of Robert Creeley

“To be in love is like going out-
side to see what kind of day
it is.”
― Robert Creeley, Selected Poems of Robert Creeley, 1945–2005

“What's inside,
what's the place
apart from
this one?”
― Robert Creeley, Selected Poems of Robert Creeley, 1945–2005

“The Language"

Locate I
love you some-
where in

teeth and
eyes, bite
it but

take care not
to hurt, you
want so

much so
little. Words
say everything.

I
love you
again,

then what
is emptiness
for. To

fill, fill.
I heard words
and words full

of holes
aching. Speech
is a mouth.”
― Robert Creeley, Selected Poems of Robert Creeley

“Bless
something small
but infinite
and quiet.

— Robert Creeley, from “A Prayer,” The Collected Poems of Robert Creeley, 1945–1975. (University of California Press; 2nd ed. edition October 23, 2006)”
― Robert Creeley, The Collected Poems of Robert Creeley, 1945-1975

“The 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

“One knows that in the waters hereabouts, in a particular spring,
Ponce de Leon staggered in so as to live forever.
But poisoned with infection from a local’s arrow
and conned by the legend of eternal youth,
he’d led all his people into a bloody cul de sac
and ended himself being fed to alligators
ate him skin and bones, leaving no trace.

So it may be we all now look
for where the first of these old folks went down,
seeing his own face in the placid creek,
hearing the far off murmur of the surf,
feeling his body open in the dark,
the warmth of the air, the odor of the flowers,
the eternal maiden waiting soft in her bower.”
― Robert Creeley, Selected Poems of Robert Creeley, 1945–2005

“You’ve left a lot out
Being in doubt
you left
it out

Your mother
Aunt Bernice
in Nokomis
to the west

and south (?)
in trailer park
Dead now for years
as one says

You’ve left
them out
David
your son

Your friend
John
You’ve left
them out

You thought
you were writing
about
what you felt

You’ve left it out
Your love
your life
your home

your wife
You’ve
left her
out

No one is one
No one’s alone
No world’s that small
No life

You left it out”
― Robert Creeley, Selected Poems of Robert Creeley, 1945–2005

“Like They Say

Underneath the tree on some
soft grass I sat, I

watched two happy
woodpeckers be dis-

turbed by my presence. And
why not, I thought to

myself, why
not.”
― Robert Creeley

“The Answer"

Will we speak to each other
making the grass bend as if
a wind were before us, will our

way be as graceful, as
substantial as the movement
of something moving so gently.

We break things into pieces like
walls we break ourselves into
hearing them fall just to hear it.”
― Robert Creeley, The Collected Poems of Robert Creeley, 1945-1975

“The Woman"

I have never
clearly given to you
the associations
you have for me, you

with such
divided presence my dream
does not show
you. I do not dream.

I have compounded
these sensations, the
accumulation of the things
left me by you.

Always your
tits, not breasts, but
harsh sudden rises
of impatient flesh

on the chest--is it
mine--which flower
against the vagueness
of the air you move in.

You walk
such a shortness
of intent strides, your
height is so low,

in my hand
I feel the weight
of yours there,
one over one

of both, as you
pivot upon me, the
same weight grown
as the hair, the

second of your attributes,
falls to
cover us. We
couple but lie against

no surface, have
lifted as you again
grow small
against myself, into

the air. The
air the third of
the signs of you
are known by: a

quiet, a soughing silence,
the winds lightly
moved. Then

your
mouth, it opens not
speaking, touches,

wet, on me. Then
I scream, I
sing such as is
given to me, roar-

ing unheard,
like stark sight
sees itself
inverted

into dark
turned. Onanistic.
I feel around
myself what

you have left me
with, wetness, pools
of it, my skin
drips.”
― Robert Creeley, The Collected Poems of Robert Creeley, 1945-1975