41 Quotes by Karl Shapiro

In the tight belly of the dead, Burrow with hungry head, And inlay maggots like a jewel.

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

The body, what is it, Father, but a sign To love the force that grows us, to give back What in Thy palm is senselessness and mud?

But this invites the occult mind, Cancels our physics with a sneer, And spatters all we knew of denouement,Across the expedient and wicked stones.

Give me the free and poor inheritance, Of our own kind, not furniture, Of education, or the prophet's pose, The general cause of words, the hero's stance, The ambitions incommensurable with flesh.

We too are ashes as we watch and hear The psalm, the sorrow, and the simple praise, Of one whose promised thoughts of other days, Were such as ours, but now wholly destroyed, The service record of his youth wiped out, His dream dispersed by shot, must disappear.

We are deranged, walking among the cops, Who sweep glass and are large and composed.

There is nothing so subject to the inconstancy of fortune as war. Cervantes Every war has its own excuse. That's why they're all surrounded with ideals. That's why they're all crusades.

To girls and wives always alive and fated; To men and scholars always dead like Greek And always mistranslated.