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The purpose of poetry is to remind us how difficult it is to remain just one person, for our house is open, there are no keys in the doors, and invisible guests come in and out at will.

Czeslaw Milosz

When I die, I will see the lining of the world. The other side, beyond bird, mountain, sunset.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Beyond Line Side Sunset World
You who think of us: they lived only in delusion, Know that we the People of the Book, will never die!
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Death Illusion Live People Thinking
At every sunrise I renounce the doubts of night and greet the new day of a most precious delusion.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Doubt Myself Night Precious Sunrise
A true opium of the people is a belief in nothingness after death.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Belief Death People True
I imagine the earth when I am no more: Women’s dresses, dewy lilacs, a song in the valley. Yet the books will be there on the shelves, well born, Derived from people, but also from radiance, heights.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Book Born Imagination Myself People Radiant Woman
Grow your tree of falsehood from a small grain of truth. Do not follow those who lie in contempt of reality. Let your lie be even more logical than the truth itself, so the weary travelers may find repose.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Finding Growth Reality Small Travel Tree Truth
Love means to look at yourself The way one looks at distant things For you are only one thing among many.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Distant Love Way Yourself
I’ve always regretted that I’m made of contradictions. But, if contradiction is impossible to overcome, we have to accept both its ends.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Acceptance End Impossible Regret
You see how I try To reach with words What matters most And how I fail.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Failure Myself Reach Try
It’s true that what is morbid is highly valued today, and so you may think that I am only joking or that I’ve devised just one more means of praising Art with the help of irony.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Art Day Irony Myself Praise Thinking True Value
Men will clutch at illusions when they have nothing else to hold to.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Catch Hold Illusion Man
I have no wisdom, no skills, and no faith but I received strength, it tears the world apart. I shall break, a heavy wave, against its shores and a young wave will cover my trace.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Myself Skills Strength Trace Wisdom Young
What is this enigmatic impulse that does not allow one to settle down in the achieved, the finished? I think it is a quest for reality.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Achievement Allow Finish Oneself Reality Settle Thinking
And now I am ready to keep running When the sun rises beyond the borderlands of death. I already see mountain ridges in the heavenly forest Where, beyond every essence, a new essence awaits.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Beyond Death Essence Forest Heaven Rise Run Sun Wait
Human material seems to have one major defect: it does not like to be considered merely as human material. It finds it hard to endure the feeling that it must resign itself to passive acceptance of changes introduced from above.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Acceptance Defect Endurance Human Introduction Material Oneself Passive
Only a white-haired old man, who would be a prophet Yet is not a prophet, for he’s much too busy, Repeats while he binds his tomatoes: No other end of the world will there be, No other end of the world will there be.
CZESLAW MILOSZ

Appearance End Man Old Repeat White Willing World

The purpose of poetry is to remind us how difficult it is to remain just one person, for our house is open, there are no keys in the doors, and invisible guests come in and out at will.

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The purpose of poetry is to remind us how difficult it is to remain just one person, for our house is open, there are no keys in the doors, and invisible guests come in and out at will.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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