Denis Johnson
Denis Johnson
Denis Hale Johnsonis an American writer best known for his short story collection Jesus' Sonand his novel Tree of Smoke, which won the National Book Award for Fiction. He also writes plays, poetry and non-fiction...
NationalityGerman
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth1 July 1949
CountryGermany
beautiful born
There was a part of her she hadn’t yet allowed to be born because it was too beautiful for this place
beautiful girlfriend holiday
I’d been staying at the Holiday Inn with my girlfriend, honestly the most beautiful woman I’d even known, for three days under a phony name, shooting heroin. We made love in the bed, ate steaks at the restaurant, shot up in the john, puked, cried, accused one another, begged of one another, forgave, promised, and carried one another to heaven.
beautiful girlfriend mistake
And with each step my heart broke for the person I would never find, the person who'd love me. And then I would remember I had a wife at home who loved me, or later that my wife had left me and I was terrirfied, or again later that I had a beautiful alcoholic girlfriend who would make me happy forever. But every time I entered the place there were veiled faces promising everything and then clarifying quickly into the dull, the usual, looking up at me and making the same mistake.
beautiful secret layers
They needed to share one secret after another with a beautiful woman, to peel away layer after layer, mask after mask, and still find themselves worshiped.
begin children dawn drop neighbors radios screams soon start time wind
As soon as the first drop of dawn dilutes the blackness, the neighbors begin their unbelievable racket, first the roosters, then the radios, then the live accompaniment to the radios - and then it's time to wind up the little children and start their screams and tears.
writing want humans
In my writing, I want to be laid bare as a human being.
hate teaching two
I hate two kinds of sentences you hear in workshops, the ones beginning "I really like ..." and the ones beginning "My problem with this poem is ..."
trying communicate
What could be lonelier than trying to communicate?
heart torn chests
We’d torn open our chests and shown our cowardly hearts, and you can never stay friends after something like that
heart steps broke
With each step my heart broke for the person I would never find, the person who'd love me.
war tree might
It was only when you left it alone that a tree might treat you as a friend. After the blade bit in, you had yourself a war.
heart soul mind
Before this moment I'd lived as a mind. Body, heart, soul, intellect, so we care ourselves into parts. But the whole of us, what can it be?
mean sides grows
Everybody’s got a mean side. Just don’t feed it till it grows.
stories whole
We can’t always tell the whole story about ourselves.