Karl Shapiro

The doctor punched my vein, the captain called me Cain, upon my belly sat the sow of fear.

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Laughter and grief join hands. Always the heart Clumps in the breast with heavy stride; The face grows lined and wrinkled like a chart, The eyes bloodshot with tears and tide. Let the wind blow, for many a man shall die.

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But with exquisite breathing you smile, with satisfaction of love, And I touch you again as you tick in the silence and settle in sleep.

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Lastly, his tomb shall list and founder in the troughs of grass. And none shall speak his name.

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Already old, the question Who shall die? Becomes unspoken Who is innocent?

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How something important happens is the business of historians and newspapers, the effect it has is the business of philosophers and writers and especially poets.

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A man's house is his stage. Others walk on to play their bit parts. Now and again a soliloquy, a birth, an adultery.

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Lawyers love paper. They eat, sleep and dream paper. They turn paper into gold, and their files are colorful and their language neoclassical and calli-graphically bewigged.

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The proverbist knows nothing of the two sides of a question. He knows only the roundness of answers.

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To make the child in your own image is a capital crime, for your image is not worth repeating. The child knows this and you know it. Consequently you hate each other.

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Poets of course are even more unpredictable than other writers, overwhelmed as they are by the moment they inhabit and finding it difficult to connect yesterday with tomorrow.

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Self-knowledge is a dangerous thing, tending to make man shallow or insane.

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Every war is its own excuse. That's why they're all surrounded with ideals. That's why they're all crusades.

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Quotes by Karl Shapiro