Awe Quotes

“I reached deep in you and pulled out a cardinal which in bright red flew out the window. ”
― Dorothea Lasky, Awe

“The Process of Explication"

I

Students, look at this table
And now when you see a man six feet tall
You can call him a fathom.

Likewise, students when yes and you do that and other stuff
Likewise too the shoe falls upon the sun
And the alphabet is full of blood
And when you knock upon a sentence in the
Process of explication you are going to need a lot of rags

Likewise, hello and goodbye.


II

Nick Algiers is my student
And he sits there in a heap in front of me thinking of suicide
And so, I am the one in front of him
And I dance around him in a circle and light him on fire
And with his face on fire, I am suddenly ashamed.

Likewise the distance between us then
Is the knife that is not marriage.


III

Students, I can’t lie, I’d rather be doing something else, I guess
Like making love or writing a poem
Or drinking wine on a tropical island
With a handsome boy who wants to hold me all night.

I can’t lie that dreams are ridiculous.
And in dreaming myself upon the moon
I have made the moon my home and no one
Can ever get to me to hit me or kiss my lips.

And as my bridegroom comes and takes me away from you
You all ask me what is wrong and I say it is
That I will never win.”
― Dorothea Lasky, Awe

“There have been times love has made my human
Instincts into animal ones. 
Once in a dark lit bar, my love said my poems were shit
And I, in the light of the candles,
Pushed a sword into myself and fell over a cliff
Into a neverending ocean.
Once a man 5 years my younger
Loved me and then gave me up.
I raged around him like a bear.
I once cheated on a new boyfriend with an old boyfriend.
I cheated on an old boyfriend with a new one.
Love has the ability to make the world kind,
The specifics of one man always blends into another
And turns back into my mother’s kisses on my cheek.
It is I who loves, but it is in turn
The world that loves me back. The world loves
And I love back, the specifics of it
Once in tune. Once we kissed and I was 
Mesmerized by the blondness of his cheek
With the light on it and the sweet smell of the earth.
But still the light on the cheek is the desert lizards
Who will eat us in the afterworld and in the light of the moon
There is the exhaust of love falling over everything'
— In Order to Penetrate Character One Must Have Great Piety”
― Dorothea Lasky, Awe