Saxophone Poetry Quotes

At the edge of madness you howl diamonds and pearls.

Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! The world is holy! The soul is holy! The skin is holy! The nose is holy! The tongue and cock and hand and asshole holy! Everything is holy! everybody's holy! everywhere is holy! everyday is in eternity! Everyman's an angel! The bum's as holy as the seraphim! the madman is holy as you my soul are holy! The typewriter is holy the poem is holy the voice is holy the hearers are holy the ecstasy is holy! Holy Peter holy Allen holy Solomon holy Lucien holy Kerouac holy Huncke holy Burroughs holy Cas- sady holy the unknown buggered and suffering beggars holy the hideous human angels! Holy my mother in the insane asylum! Holy the cocks of the grandfathers of Kansas! Holy the groaning saxophone! Holy the bop apocalypse! Holy the jazzbands marijuana hipsters peace & junk & drums! Holy the solitudes of skyscrapers and pavements! Holy the cafeterias filled with the millions! Holy the mysterious rivers of tears under the streets! Holy the lone juggernaut! Holy the vast lamb of the middle class! Holy the crazy shepherds of rebell- ion! Who digs Los Angeles IS Los Angeles! Holy New York Holy San Francisco Holy Peoria & Seattle Holy Paris Holy Tangiers Holy Moscow Holy Istanbul! Holy time in eternity holy eternity in time holy the clocks in space holy the fourth dimension holy the fifth International holy the Angel in Moloch! Holy the sea holy the desert holy the railroad holy the locomotive holy the visions holy the hallucina- tions holy the miracles holy the eyeball holy the abyss! Holy forgiveness! mercy! charity! faith! Holy! Ours! bodies! suffering! magnanimity! Holy the supernatural extra brilliant intelligent kindness of the soul!

I used to think love was two people sucking on the same straw to see whose thirst was stronger, but then I whiffed the crushed walnuts of your nape, traced jackals in the snow-covered tombstones of your teeth. I used to think love was a non-stop saxophone solo in the lungs, till I hung with you like a pair of sneakers from a phone line, and you promised to always smell the rose in my kerosene. I used to think love was terminal pelvic ballet, till you let me jog beside while you pedaled all over hell on the menstrual bicycle, your tongue ripping through my prairie like a tornado of paper cuts. I used to think love was an old man smashing a mirror over his knee, till you helped me carry the barbell of my spirit back up the stairs after my car pirouetted in the desert. You are my history book. I used to not believe in fairy tales till I played the dunce in sheep’s clothing and felt how perfectly your foot fit in the glass slipper of my ass. But then duty wrapped its phone cord around my ankle and yanked me across the continent. And now there are three thousand miles between the u and s in esophagus. And being without you is like standing at a cement-filled wall with a roll of Yugoslavian nickels and making a wish. Some days I miss you so much I’d jump off the roof of your office building just to catch a glimpse of you on the way down. I wish we could trade left eyeballs, so we could always see what the other sees. But you’re here, I’m there, and we have only words, a nightly phone call - one chance to mix feelings into syllables and pour into the receiver, hope they don’t disassemble in that calculus of wire. And lately - with this whole war thing - the language machine supporting it - I feel betrayed by the alphabet, like they’re injecting strychnine into my vowels, infecting my consonants, naming attack helicopters after shattered Indian tribes: Apache, Blackhawk; and West Bank colonizers are settlers, so Sharon is Davey Crockett, and Arafat: Geronimo, and it’s the Wild West all over again. And I imagine Picasso looking in a mirror, decorating his face in war paint, washing his brushes in venom. And I think of Jenin in all that rubble, and I feel like a Cyclops with two eyes, like an anorexic with three mouths, like a scuba diver in quicksand, like a shark with plastic vampire teeth, like I’m the executioner’s fingernail trying to reason with the hand. And I don’t know how to speak love when the heart is a busted cup filling with spit and paste, and the only sexual fantasy I have is busting into the Pentagon with a bazooka-sized pen and blowing open the minds of generals. And I comfort myself with the thought that we’ll name our first child Jenin, and her middle name will be Terezin, and we’ll teach her how to glow in the dark, and how to swallow firecrackers, and to never neglect the first straw; because no one ever talks about the first straw, it’s always the last straw that gets all the attention, but by then it’s way too late.

New York! I say New York, let black blood flow into your blood. Let it wash the rust from your steel joints, like an oil of life Let it give your bridges the curve of hips and supple vines. Now the ancient age returns, unity is restored, The recociliation of the Lion and Bull and Tree Idea links to action, the ear to the heart, sign to meaning. See your rivers stirring with musk alligators And sea cows with mirage eyes. No need to invent the Sirens. Just open your eyes to the April rainbow And your eyes, especially your ears, to God Who in one burst of saxophone laughter Created heaven and earth in six days, And on the seventh slept a deep Negro sleep.

Title: Blue Light Lounge Sutra For The Performance Poets At Harold Park Hotel the need gotta be so deep words can't answer simple questions all night long notes stumble off the tongue & color the air indigo so deep fragments of gut & flesh cling to the song you gotta get into it so deep salt crystalizes on eyelashes the need gotta be so deep you can vomit up ghosts & not feel broken till you are no more than a half ounce of gold in painful brightness you gotta get into it blow that saxophone so deep all the sex & dope in this world can't erase your need to howl against the sky the need gotta be so deep you can't just wiggle your hips & rise up out of it chaos in the cosmos modern man in the pepperpot you gotta get hooked into every hungry groove so deep the bomb locked in rust opens like a fist into it into it so deep rhythm is pre-memory the need gotta be basic animal need to see & know the terror we are made of honey cause if you wanna dance this boogie be ready to let the devil use your head for a drum

When fishing for birds, remember: The sky is a floating body of water. Use the proper bait, like Victorian poetry. Some ducks fly like they swim, and they love Browning everything behind them.

A one-liner is the highest form of poetry. It must be tight, concise, and precise, with exactly the right words in exactly the right places. And maybe the best reply is also the shortest: Quack. When a duck says quack, does it mean something specific, or does it mean nothing? That ambiguity makes it hilarious.

Let the trees be consulted before you take any action every time you breathe in thank a tree let tree roots crack parking lots at the world bank headquarters let loggers be druids specially trained and rewarded to sacrifice trees at auspicious times let carpenters be master artisans let lumber be treasured like gold let chain saws be played like saxophones let soldiers on maneuvers plant trees give police and criminals a shovel and a thousand seedlings let businessmen carry pocketfuls of acorns let newlyweds honeymoon in the woods walk don't drive stop reading newspapers stop writing poetry squat under a tree and tell stories.

I speak the language of the bees. My words are floral and flowery.

Golf is so scenic that it makes me want to compose haikus on the greens. Mini-golf makes me want to write even shorter poetry.

If you string gem-like words together, you have a Poetry Necklace. I’m now selling decorative I Love Yous for just under $19.96 ($19.95, to be precise). They taste great in your mouth like duck soup in your ears.

Someday I’d like to go to Atlantic City with you not to gamble (just being there with you is enough of a gamble) but to ride the high white breakers have a Manhattan and listen to a baritone saxophone play a tune called “Salsa Eyes” with you beside me on a banquette but why stop there let’s go to Paris in November when it’s raining and we read the Tribune at La Rotonde our hotel room has a big bathtub I knew you’d like that and we can be a couple of unknown Americans what are we waiting for let’s go

You are turning me like someone turning a globe in her hand, and yes, I have another side like a China no one, not even me, has ever seen. So describe to me what's there, say what you are looking at and I will close my eyes so I can see it too, the oxcarts and all the lively flags. I love the sound of your voice like a little saxophone telling me what I could never know unless I dug a hole all the way down through the core of myself.

The conversation swings from the brothers Bush to the war in Iraq to the emerging rights of Muslim women to postfeminism to current cinema—Mexican, American, European (Giorgio goes spasmodically mad over Bu-ñuel), and back to Mexican again—to the relative superiority of shrimp over any other kind of taco to the excellence of Ana’s paella, to Ana’s childhood, then to Jimena’s, to the changing role of motherhood in a postindustrial world, to sculpture, then painting, then poetry, then baseball, then Jimena’s inexplicable (to Pablo) fondness for American football (she’s a Dallas Cowboys fan) over real (to Pablo) fútbol, to his admittedly adolescent passion for the game, to the trials of adolescence itself and revelations over the loss of virginity and why we refer to it as a loss and now Óscar and Tomás, arms over each other’s shoulders, are chanting poetry and then Giorgio picks up a guitar and starts to play and this is the Juárez that Pablo loves, this is the city of his soul—the poetry, the passionate discussions (Ana makes her counterpoints jabbing her cigarette like a foil; Jimena’s words flow like a gentle wave across beach sand, washing away the words before; Giorgio trills a jazz saxophone while Pablo plays bass—they are a jazz combo of argument), the ideas flowing with the wine and beer, the lilting music in a black night, this is the gentle heartbeat of the Mexico that he adores, the laughter, the subtle perfume of desert flowers that grow in alleys alongside garbage, and now everyone is singing— México, está muy contento, Dando gracias a millares… —and this is his life—this is his city, these are his friends, his beloved friends, these people, and if this is all that there is or will be, it is enough for him, his world, his life, his city, his people, his sad beautiful Juárez… —empezaré de Durango, Torreón y Ciudad de

(So much laughter, concealed by blood and faith; Life is a saxophone played by death.) Greedy to please, we learned to cry; Hungry to live, we learned to die. The heart is a sad musician, Forever playing the blues.

Let the trees be consulted before you take any action every time you breathe in thank a tree let treeroots crack parking lots at the world bank headquarters let loggers be druids specially trained and rewarded to sacrifice trees at auspicious times let carpenters be master artisans let lumber be treasured like gold let chainsaws be played like saxophones let soldiers on maneuvers plant trees give police and criminals a shovel and a thousand seedlings let businessmen carry pocketfuls of acorns let newlyweds honeymoon in the woods walk don’t drive stop reading newspapers stop writing poetry squat under a tree and tell stories JOHN WRIGHT

Winter's coming in the air tonight Feel it blowing off the park But that don't mean that we can't take a ride 60 miles to Seaside Heights I do the same old thing again, because it don't feel old There's no need to reinvent, you’re sensational Poetry in motion, swinging with your saxophone in the rain What's this devotion? I've never felt love, not from pain Bodies or oceans, you fill mine up with your right rain Because you're like, poetry in motion Sippin' on your martini in the band What’s this devotion? You really seem like a good man Bodies or oceans, I cling to you like your mainland Winter's coming in the air tonight Feel it blowin' off the park But that don't mean that we can't take a ride 60 miles to Seaside Heights I want the same old thing again, 'cause it don't feel old That there's no need to reinvent you, you're sensational You're poetry in motion, swinging with your saxophone in the rain What's this devotion? I never felt love, not from pain Bodies or oceans, you lift mine up with your right rain Because you're like poetry in motion Sippin' on your martini in the band What’s this devotion? You really feel like a good man Bodies or oceans, mhm On the cover of life is a picture of a man Just like she's alive again, and everyone Doesn't matter if you're a One, two, three Because you're like poetry in motion Swinging with your saxophone in the bar What's this devotion? Built with metal and with guitar Bodies or oceans, wash over all my scars, Because you're like poetry in motion Swingin' with your martini in the band What's this emotion? You really seem like a good man Bodies or oceans, I cling to you like your mainland