posts tagged "Margaret Atwood"

Love, what are we to do

on the streets these days

and how am I

to know that you

and how are you to know

that I, that

we are not parts of those

people, scraps glued together

waiting for a chance

to come to life

(One day

I’ll touch the warm

flesh of your throat, and hear

a faint crackle of paper

or you, who think

that you can read my mind

from the inside out, will taste the

black ink on my tongue, and find

the fine print written

just beneath my skin.)

-Margaret Atwood, from “On The Streets, Love”

"To be lost is only a failure of memory.”
-Margaret Atwood, from “A Boat"

"I would rather cut myself loose
from time, shave off my hair
and stand at a crossroads
with a wooden bowl, throwing
myself on the dubious mercy
of the present, which is innocent
and forgetful and hits the eye bare

and without words and without even love
than do this mourning over.”
-Margaret Atwood, from “Precognition"

“What is your favorite word?”
“And. It is so hopeful.”
-From an interview with Margaret Atwood

(Source: beinlovewithyourlife)

"You want to wash yourself
in earth, in rocks and grass

What are you supposed to do
with all this loss?”
-Margaret Atwood, from “Down"

"Love comes
in waves like the ocean, a sickness which goes on
& on, a hollow cave
in the head, filling and pounding, a kicked ear.”
-Margaret Atwood, from “Postcard"

"Time comes in waves here, a sickness, one
day after the other rolling on;
I move up, its called
awake, then down into the uneasy
nights but never
forward.”
Margaret Atwood, from “Postcard"

"We must resist. We must refuse
to disappear

I said, In exile
survival
is the first necessity.

After that (I say this
tentatively)
we might begin

Survive what? you said.

In the weak light you looked
over your shoulder.
You said

Nobody ever survives.”
-Margaret Atwood, from “Roominghouse, Winter"

"How long will you demand I love you?

I’m through, I won’t make
any more flowers for you

I judge you as the trees do
by dying”
-Margaret Atwood, from “Power Politics"

"The languages of the dying suns
are themselves dying,
but even the word for this has been forgotten.
The mouth against skin, vivid and fading,
can no longer speak both cherishing and farewell.
it is now only a mouth, only skin.
There is no more longing.”
-Margaret Atwood, from “Marsh Languages"