My Index of Slightly Horrifying Knowledge Quotes

“Beside you I failed to dream of anything else.”
― Paul Guest, My Index of Slightly Horrifying Knowledge

“I’m learning
geography is about loss
and so I keep moving
into closets that never smell like you.
I’m learning not to order
everything and want nothing.
My mouth is empty. The words won’t stay.

— Paul Guest, from “Airport Letter 2,” My Index of Slightly Horrifying Knowledge (Ecco, 2008)”
― Paul Guest, My Index of Slightly Horrifying Knowledge

“I’m learning
geography is about loss
and so I keep moving”
― Paul Guest, My Index of Slightly Horrifying Knowledge

“And there are nights
when I can’t speak,
not even to the wind
in the strange tongue of the dark pine trees.”
― Paul Guest, My Index of Slightly Horrifying Knowledge

“Something lost somewhere
inside you, untraceable, sinking,
and even at her heart’s request
you’d never pluck a single shining coin
from behind her ear, the warm shell of all her sound,
in which you heard the ocean
rolling away in bracing violence.
In which more of you began to sink and be lost.
In which and in which
and this was enough
to put your lips to the door and not know why.
Not really. Not while rain
held its court in the world
and even in the noon darkness
the day gleamed with water on its face.

—Paul Guest, from “Elegiac Forecast,” My Index of Slightly Horrifying Knowledge (Ecco, 2008)”
― Paul Guest, My Index of Slightly Horrifying Knowledge