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I am singing now while Rome burns.

Richard Siken

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Richard Siken
Age: 57
Born: 1967
Born: February 15
Poet
New York City
New York
Rome
Singing
Burns

More quotes by Richard Siken

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You wanted happiness, I can’t blame you for that, and maybe a mouth sounds idiotic when it blathers on about joy but tell me you love this, tell me you’re not miserable.
Richard Siken
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Tell me about the dream where we pull the bodies out of the lake and dress them in warm clothes again.
Richard Siken
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I sleep. I dream. I make up things that I would never say. I say them very quietly.
Richard Siken
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We can do anything. It’s not because our hearts are large, they’re not, it’s what we struggle with. The attempt to say Come over. Bring your friends. It’s a potluck, I’m making pork chops, I’m making those long noodles you love so much.
Richard Siken
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I swear, I end up feeling empty, like you've taken something out of me and I have to search my body for scars.
Richard Siken
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We have not touched the stars, nor are we forgiven, which brings us back to the hero’s shoulders and the gentleness that comes, not from the absence of violence, but despite the abundance of it.
Richard Siken
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I'm bleeding, I'm not just making conversation.
Richard Siken
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If you love me, Henry, you don’t love me in a way I understand.
Richard Siken
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Here I am in a rabbit run, here I am in a valley of pine, waiting for you to find me. I could pretend I’m speaking to everyone—assume a middle distance and transcend myself—but I’m taking to you and you know it.
Richard Siken
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The entire history of human desire takes about seventy minutes to tell. Unfortunately, we don’t have that kind of time.
Richard Siken
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When you have nothing to say, set something on fire.
Richard Siken
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The way you slam your body into mine reminds me I’m alive, but monsters are always hungry, darling.
Richard Siken
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Oh, the things we invent when we are scared and want to be rescued.
Richard Siken
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Here I am leaving you clues. I am singing now while Rome burns. We are all just trying to be holy. My applejack, my silent night, just mash your lips against me. We are all going forward. None of us are going back.
Richard Siken
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Is that too much to expect? That I would name the stars for you? That I would take you there? The splash of my tongue melting you like a sugar cube?
Richard Siken
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Fairy tales have rules. You are a princess or you aren’t. You are pure at heart or you aren’t. If you are pure at heart, or lucky, you might catch a break.
Richard Siken
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Do we simply stare at what is horrible and forgive it?
Richard Siken
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He could build a city. Has a certain capacity. There’s a niche in his chest where a heart would fit perfectly and he thinks if he could just maneuver one into place – well then, game over.
Richard Siken
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We laugh & it pits the world against us.
Richard Siken
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I'm battling monsters, I'm pulling you out of the burning buildings/ and you say I'll give you anything but you never come through.
Richard Siken