Quote

The dreary flies, lazy and casual, Stick to the ceiling, buzz along the wall. O heart, the spider shuffles from the mould Weaving, between the pinks and grapes, his pall.

Allen Tate

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Allen Tate
Age: 79 †
Born: 1899
Born: November 19
Died: 1979
Died: February 9
Author
Literary Critic
Poet
University Teacher
Writer
Winchester
Kentucky
John Orley Allen Tate
Casual
Ceiling
Lazy
Dreary
Shuffles
Stick
Ceilings
Pinks
Sticks
Buzz
Pall
Along
Grapes
Shuffle
Wall
Spiders
Weaving
Heart
Flies
Mould
Insects
Spider

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Religion is the sole technique for the validating of values.
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The dusk runs down the lane driven like hail Far off a precise whistle is escheat To the dark and then the towering weak and pale.
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we know our end A packet of worm-seed, a garden of spent tissues.
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There is a calm for you where men and women Unroll the chill precision of moving feet.
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Other psychological theories say a good deal about compensation.
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POET If not in a place, where are the People weeping? LIBERAL They creep weeping in the face, not place. POET Is it something with which we may cope The weeping, the creeping, the peepee-ing, the peeping?
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Row after row with strict impunity The headstones yield their names to the element, The wind whirrs without recollection.
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The torrent of the reaching shade Broke shadow into all its parts, What then had been of shadow made Found exigence in fits and starts.
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In a manner of speaking, the poem is its own knower, neither poet nor reader knowing anything that the poem says apart from the words of the poem.
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How does one happen to write a poem: where does it come from? That is the question asked by the psychologists or the geneticists of poetry.
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So the poet, who wants to be something that he cannot be, and is a failure in plain life, makes up fictitious versions of his predicament that are interesting even to other persons because nobody is a perfect automobile salesman.
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At twelve I was determined to shoot only For honor at twenty not to shoot at all I know at thirty-three that one must shoot As often as one gets the rare chance - In killing there is more than commentary.
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Men cannot live forever But they must die forever.
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The innocent mansion of a panther's heart!
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Punctilious abyss, the yawn of space Come once a day to suffocate the sight.
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Walk in this faithless grass with studious tread, Lest mice, weasels, germane beasts, too soon The tall hat and eyes, the fierce feet, for dead Descry, and fix you prone in their revelling moon.
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In an age of abstract experience, fornication Is self-expression, adjunct to Christian euphoria, And whores become delinquents delinquents, patients Patients, wards of society. Whores, by that rule, Are precious.
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There's precious little to say between day and dark, Perhaps a few words on the implacable will Of time sailing like a magic barque Or something as fine for the amenities.
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Now remember courage, go to the door,Open it and see whether coiled on the bedOr cringing by the wall, a savage beastMaybe with golden hair, with deep eyesLike a bearded spider on a sunlit floorWill snarl-and man can never be alone.
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