54 Quotes by Yusef Komunyakaa

I’ve been here before, dreaming myselfbackwards, among grappling hooks of light.True to the seasons, I’ve lived every wordspoken. Did I walk into someone’s nightmare?

Go & tell your drinking buddies& psychoanalyst your neighborhas risen from the ashes. I wonderif I should tell you about the love lettershidden behind the doorjamb. This housestill stands among my lavender flowers.Tell your inheritors to think of mewhen they smile up at the sky.

Cursing themselves in ragged dreamsfire has singed the edges of,they know a slow dying the fields have come to terms with.Shimmering fans work against the heat& smell of gunpowder, making moneyfloat from hand to hand. The next momenta rocket pushes a white fistthrough night sky, & they scatter like birds& fall into the shape their liveshave become.

I ate mythology & dreamt'- Yusef Komunyakaa (Blackberries)

I'm turning you into a girlchasing a butterfly, a she-wolfon a hilltop, & then back into a woman.

A goddess of dawnscooted under a zing of barbed wireto witness your birth.

We were born between Oh Yeah& Goddammit. I knew lifeBegan where I stood in the dark,Looking out into the light,& that sometimes I could seeEverything through nothing.The backyard trees breathedLike a man running from himselfAs my brothers backed awayFrom the screendoor.

Years ago you followed someonehere, in love with breathkissing the nape of your neck,back when it was easy to beat least two places at once.

See how forgiving - how brave nature is.