Goodreads helps you follow your favorite authors. Be the first to learn about new releases!
Start by following Robert Hayden.
Showing 1-30 of 35
“We must not be frightened nor cajoled
into accepting evil as deliverance from evil.
We must go on struggling to be human,
though monsters of abstraction
police and threaten us.
Reclaim now, now renew the vision of
a human world where godliness
is possible and man
is neither gook nigger honkey wop nor kike
but man
permitted to be man.”
― Collected Poems
into accepting evil as deliverance from evil.
We must go on struggling to be human,
though monsters of abstraction
police and threaten us.
Reclaim now, now renew the vision of
a human world where godliness
is possible and man
is neither gook nigger honkey wop nor kike
but man
permitted to be man.”
― Collected Poems
“Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.
I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,
speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices?”
― Collected Poems
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.
I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,
speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices?”
― Collected Poems
“Art is not escape, but a way of finding order in chaos, a way of confronting life.”
―
―
“When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,
Speaking indifferently to him,
Who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
Of love's austere and lonely offices?”
―
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,
Speaking indifferently to him,
Who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
Of love's austere and lonely offices?”
―
“The trees themselves, as in winters past, will survive their burdening, broken thrive.”
― Collected Poems
― Collected Poems
“Unable to sleep, or pray, I stand
by the window looking out
at moonstruck trees a December storm
has bowed with ice.
Maple and mountain ash bend
under its glassy weight,
their cracked branches falling upon
the frozen snow.
The trees themselves, as in winters past,
will survive their burdening,
broken thrive. And am I less to You,
my God, than they?”
― Collected Poems
by the window looking out
at moonstruck trees a December storm
has bowed with ice.
Maple and mountain ash bend
under its glassy weight,
their cracked branches falling upon
the frozen snow.
The trees themselves, as in winters past,
will survive their burdening,
broken thrive. And am I less to You,
my God, than they?”
― Collected Poems
“I grieve. Yet know the
vanity of grief.”
―
vanity of grief.”
―
“Monet’s “Waterlilies” (for Bill and Sonja) Today as the news from Selma and Saigon poisons the air like fallout, I come again to see the serene great picture that I love. Here space and time exist in light the eye like the eye of faith believes. The seen, the known dissolve in iridescence, become illusive flesh of light that was not, was, forever is. O light beheld as through refracting tears. Here is the aura of that world each of us has lost. Here is the shadow of its joy.”
― Collected Poems
― Collected Poems
“It was as though you struggled against
fierce current jagged with debris
to save me then. I am desperate still.”
― Collected Poems
fierce current jagged with debris
to save me then. I am desperate still.”
― Collected Poems
“O Jesus burning on the lily cross...
O night, rawhead and bloodybones night...
O night betrayed by darkness not its own.”
―
O night, rawhead and bloodybones night...
O night betrayed by darkness not its own.”
―
“We must not be frightened nor cajoled
into accepting evil as deliverance from evil.
We must go on struggling to be human,
though monsters of abstraction
police and threaten us.”
―
into accepting evil as deliverance from evil.
We must go on struggling to be human,
though monsters of abstraction
police and threaten us.”
―
“confess i am curiously drawn unmentionable to
the americans doubt i could exist among them for
long however psychic demands far too severe
much violence much that repels i am attracted
none the less their variousness their ingenuity
their elan vital and that some thing essence
quiddity i cannot penetrate or name”
― Collected Poems
the americans doubt i could exist among them for
long however psychic demands far too severe
much violence much that repels i am attracted
none the less their variousness their ingenuity
their elan vital and that some thing essence
quiddity i cannot penetrate or name”
― Collected Poems
“Oh, what a world we make,
oppressor and oppressed.
Our world--
this violent ghetto, slum
of the spirit raging against itself.
We hate kill destroy
in the name of human good
our killing and our hate destroy.”
― Collected Poems
oppressor and oppressed.
Our world--
this violent ghetto, slum
of the spirit raging against itself.
We hate kill destroy
in the name of human good
our killing and our hate destroy.”
― Collected Poems
“The trees themselves, as in winters past, will survive their burdening, broken thrive. And am I less to You, my God, than they?”
― Collected Poems
― Collected Poems
“america as much a problem in metaphysics as
it is a nation earthly entity an iota in our
galaxy an organism that changes even as i
examine it fact and fantasy never twice the
same so many variables”
― Collected Poems
it is a nation earthly entity an iota in our
galaxy an organism that changes even as i
examine it fact and fantasy never twice the
same so many variables”
― Collected Poems
“something they call the american dream sure
we still believe in it i guess an earth man
in the tavern said irregardless of the some
times night mare facts we always try to double
talk our way around and its okay the dreams
okay and means whats good could be a damn sight
better means every body in the good old u s a
should have the chance to get ahead or at least
should have three squares a day as for myself
i do okay”
― Collected Poems
we still believe in it i guess an earth man
in the tavern said irregardless of the some
times night mare facts we always try to double
talk our way around and its okay the dreams
okay and means whats good could be a damn sight
better means every body in the good old u s a
should have the chance to get ahead or at least
should have three squares a day as for myself
i do okay”
― Collected Poems
“Fed the fires that consume us now, the fire that will save.”
― Collected Poems
― Collected Poems
“We fight our wish to die.”
― Collected Poems
― Collected Poems
“here among them the americans this baffling
multi people extremes and variegations their
noise restlessness their almost frightening
energy how best describe these aliens in my
reports to The Counselors
disguise myself in order to study them unobserved
adapting their varied pigmentations white black
red brown yellow the imprecise and strangering
distinctions by which they live by which they
justify their cruelties to one another
charming savages enlightened primitives brash
new comers lately sprung up in our galaxy how
describe them do they indeed know what or who
they are do not seem to yet no other beings
in the universe make more extravagant claims
for their importance and identity”
― Collected Poems
multi people extremes and variegations their
noise restlessness their almost frightening
energy how best describe these aliens in my
reports to The Counselors
disguise myself in order to study them unobserved
adapting their varied pigmentations white black
red brown yellow the imprecise and strangering
distinctions by which they live by which they
justify their cruelties to one another
charming savages enlightened primitives brash
new comers lately sprung up in our galaxy how
describe them do they indeed know what or who
they are do not seem to yet no other beings
in the universe make more extravagant claims
for their importance and identity”
― Collected Poems
“World I have loved
and loving hated,
is it your sickness
luxuriating
in my body's world?”
― Collected Poems
and loving hated,
is it your sickness
luxuriating
in my body's world?”
― Collected Poems
“their vaunted
liberty no body pushes me around i have heard
them say land of the free they sing what do
they fear mistrust betray more than the freedom
they boast of in their ignorant pride have seen
the squalid ghettoes in their violent cities
paradox on paradox how have the americans
managed to survive”
― Collected Poems
liberty no body pushes me around i have heard
them say land of the free they sing what do
they fear mistrust betray more than the freedom
they boast of in their ignorant pride have seen
the squalid ghettoes in their violent cities
paradox on paradox how have the americans
managed to survive”
― Collected Poems
“In time,
you will come to regard my questioning
with a certain pained
amusement; in time, get so
you would hardly find
it possible to live without
my joke and me.”
― Collected Poems
you will come to regard my questioning
with a certain pained
amusement; in time, get so
you would hardly find
it possible to live without
my joke and me.”
― Collected Poems
“Ay! you creatures who have walked on seas of money all your foreign lives! Por caridad.”
― Collected Poems
― Collected Poems
