Theodore Roethke

Theodore Roethke
Theodore Huebner Roethkewas an American poet. He published several volumes of award-winning and critically acclaimed poetry. Roethke is regarded as one of the most accomplished and influential poets of his generation...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth25 May 1908
CountryUnited States of America
summer wall dark
What's madness but nobility of soul At odds with circumstance? The day's on fire! I know the purity of pure despair, My shadow pinned against a sweating wall, That place among the rocks--is it a cave, Or winding path? The edge is what I have........ ....... Dark,dark my light, and darker my desire. My soul, like some heat-maddened summer fly, Keeps buzzing at the sill. ~From "The Waking" by Theodore Roethke
eye dark light
In a dark time, the eye begins to see / I meet my shadow in the deepening shade...Dark, dark my light, and darker my desire.
dark play soul
The body and the soul know how to play In that dark world where gods have lost their way.
light darkness
The darkness has it's own light.
sleep dark blessing
But when I breath with the birds, The spirit of wrath becomes the spirit of blessings, And the dead begin from their dark to sing in my sleep.
dark mind dark-times
In a dark time, the mind begins to see.
eye longest race running shakes
What shakes the eye but the invisible? Running from God's the longest race of all
happens happy mystery others prisoners shall time
Let others probe the mystery if they can/ Time harried prisoners of shall and will./ The right thing happens to the happy man.
pain fire bones
Pain wanders through my bones like a lost fire
love-is joy torment
Love begets love. This torment is my joy.
roots soul body
God bless the roots! Body and soul are one.
my-own
I came to love, I came into my own.
soul body
The soul has many motions, body one.
heart poet
The poet: would rather eat a heart than a hambone.