The Brass Quill

MFA, MA | Poet, essayist, columnist |all-around loud woman Carrie (Cair) | 34 | Her/ she |

[thebrassquill]

Two newest poems up at Hive Avenue.

[dreaming-among-roses]

“I am a woman held fast now in a great silence. / Not all creatures have your need for words.”

— Czesław Miłosz, from New and Collected Poems; “A Mirrored Gallery” (via serpenstiarae)

[violentwavesofemotion-deactivat]

But at least I’ve reached it. I have reached the aching point and I must now pick myself up. In all truth: I am the aching point.

Anne Sexton, from a letter to Anne Clarke wrtitten c. March 1963

[help-n-quotes]

I’m always soft for you, that’s the problem. You could come knocking on my door five years from now and I would open my arms wider and say ‘come here, it’s been too long, it felt like home with you.

Azra T (via help-n-quotes)

[help-n-quotes]

I’m always soft for you, that’s the problem. You could come knocking on my door five years from now and I would open my arms wider and say ‘come here, it’s been too long, it felt like home with you.

Azra T (via help-n-quotes)

[lifeinpoetry]

How come nobody told me an aria, a piece of stained glass, a painting, a sunset can be God too?

Sandra Cisneros, from “Tenemos Layaway, or, How I Became an Art Collector,” A House of My Own: Stories From My Life

[hourglassofblacktears-deactivat]

The darkness is your mother; she behooves reverence, since the mother is dangerous. She has power over you, since she gave birth to you. Honor the darkness as the light, and you will illumine your darkness.

 The Red Book. (via firmamente)

[goddesswithinyou-deactivated201]

It began in mystery, and it will end in mystery, but what a savage and beautiful country lies in between.

Diane Ackerman, A Natural History of the Senses (via goddesswithinyou)

[charcoalfingers]

Of course, she must be sleeping, sleeping deeply, wrapped in the darkness of that strange little world of hers.

Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood  (via star-eaters)

[thegirlwhocrieswolf]

[micdotcom]

Watch: Warsan Shire recites her poem “For Women Who Are Difficult to Love,” as heard in Lemonade

[noquietrevolution-deactivated20]

When I was little, I asked my pastor if Judas had been in love with Jesus. He sent me back to my mother early, with a note for her to explain “things.” But no matter what anyone said, I couldn’t be convinced that the Bible was anything less than a love story. (I kissed your cheek in front of them all and in doing so, I think that I damned the both of us. You, to be left crucified and bleeding and paying for my sins. Me, to be left wandering and wanting and never to see your face again.)

K. Wright, Judas  

[wordsnquotes]

She stood there: she listened. She heard the names of the stars.

Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway  (via wordsnquotes)

[prewars]

This much is known: the thread you never let go of guided you back. And when you emerged, years later, light hurt your eyes. Blood on your rusted blade was dry.

But what happened in the labyrinth? In deepest dark you grappled, felt its breath on your face, stabbed, and fled.

                A monster? Wouldn’t anything cry like that, pierced to the heart?

—Gregory Orr, “Investigation,” in City of Salt

[bookshavepores]

[violentwavesofemotion-deactivat]

I am the old house / With the noxious smell and the sorrow before morning, / In which all past is present, all degradation / Is unredeemable.

T.S. Eliot, from The Complete Poems & Plays; “The Family Reunion”  (via xshayarsha)

[lifeinpoetry]

She pins you to hotel doors— not a goddess anymore, but she still looks like religion in high heels. She kisses you godless. Whispers,We dress like princesses to go out and kill kings.

Ashe Vernon, from “Old World Gods,” Wrong Side of a Fistfight (via cvusland)