283 Quotes About American

I have nothing but duct-taped syntax to offer them--noise of jury-rigged verse, of entire days burnedby the focus of a foreman's glare, the labored breathof an exhausted ride homewhile she sings in a tiara and capeto tuxedoed men and bespangled women.Yet the world sounds most honest to mewhen its timing chain is slightly off.How it revs, how it almost sputters outon any given evening after a long day of work.

Little bucktoothed alligatorready to taste my bills.Make something suffer.Make something stick.

You better ignore this.You better staple your eyes shutand put pot-lids over your earsand pinch your nose with vice gripsand cement your mouth shutwith real cement and whileyou're at it or in it or whatevercut off your hands for good measure

These words are my mother’s,my father’s, my brother’s, my lender’s, my garbageman’s—the poem runslike oil on firebeneath this earth where we know each other.Witness the black smoke everywhere.

I’d reconstruct Heaven, or usurp Hell—write till I swing open like a door hinge.I arrive—a rogue who’d refurbish town.I take my pen, begin to nail things down.

The judge sentenced us to life—real, awake lifeout of the jails we had been roaming in—life in prism—then started handing out finesfor parking too long.

Above us all rose my mother’s hand, dangling from the column shifterlike some battle-tattered flag for independence, surroundedby the glass shards and quietude of a parking lot gone empty.My beautiful mother, safer than ever before,even in defection. ¼ tank of gas, fully empowered,her car pointed in every direction.

As children we learned our shadowis a darkness we never totally shakeuntil we lie down, pull the shades,draw the curtains, shut out the world,and turn our own light out.

As hard as the diamonds in your smile,the wind carries its hammers with no handsand sustains a moan with no mouth,seems to cradle solitude in its rough arms like firewoodto be burned in my house as it passes throughand asks, “Where does she sparkle from?