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26 collected words

Carol Ann Duffy

Dates not recorded

Name supplied in the contributor-provided quotation collection. Basic attribution label; identity, lifetime and quotation authenticity have not been independently verified.

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Quotations and sayings

02Undated
The bed we loved in was a spinning world of forests, castles, torchlight, clifftops, seaswhere we would dive for pearls. My lover’s wordswere shooting stars which fell to earth as kisseson these lips; my body now a softer rhymeto his, now echo, assonance; his toucha verb dancing in the centre of a noun.Some nights, I dreamed he’d written me, the beda page beneath his writer’s hands. Romanceand drama played by touch, by scent, by taste.In the other bed, the best, our guests dozed on,dribbling their prose. My living laughing love -I hold him in the casket of my widow’s headas he held me upon that next best bed.
Carol Ann Duffy / quote
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06Undated
The bed we loved in was a spinning world of forests, castles, torchlight, clifftops, seaswhere we would dive for pearls. My lover’s wordswere shooting stars which fell to earth as kisseson these lips; my body now a softer rhymeto his, now echo, assonance; his toucha verb dancing in the centre of a noun.Some nights, I dreamed he’d written me, the beda page beneath his writer’s hands. Romanceand drama played by touch, by scent, by taste.In the other bed, the best, our guests dozed on,dribbling their prose. My living laughing love -I hold him in the casket of my widow’s headas he held me upon that next bes
Carol Ann Duffy / quote
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07Undated
But behind each player sttod a line of ghosts unable to win. Eve. Ashputtel. Marilyn Monroe. Rapunzel slashing wildly at her hair. Bessie Smith unloved and down and out. Bluebeard's wives, Henry VIII's, Snow White cursing the day she left the seven dwarves, Diana, Princess of Wales. The Sheepish Beast came in with a tray of schnapps at the end of the game and we stood for the toast -"fay wray"- then tossed our fiery drinks to the back of our crimson throats. Bad girls. Serious ladies. Mourning our dead.
Carol Ann Duffy / quote
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13Undated
I found the words at the back of a drawer,wrapped in black cloth, like three ringsslipped from a dead woman’s hand, cold,dull gold. I had held them before,years ago,then put them away, forgetting whatever it wasI could use them to say. I touched the first to my lips,like a pledge, like a kiss,and my breathwarmed them, the words I needed to utter this, small words,and few. I rubbed at them till they gleamed in my palm –I love you, I love you, I love you –as though they were new.
Carol Ann Duffy / quote
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14Undated
I found the words at the back of a drawer,wrapped in black cloth, like three ringsslipped from a dead woman’s hand, cold,dull gold. I had held them before,years ago,then put them away, forgetting whatever it wasI could use them to say. I touched the first to my lips,like a pledge, like a kiss,and my breathwarmed them, the words I needed to utter this, small words,and few. I rubbed at them till they gleamed in my palm –I love you, I love you, I love you –as though they were new."Finding the Words
Carol Ann Duffy / quote
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15Undated
Love’s time’s beggar, but even a single hour,bright as a dropped coin, makes love rich.We find an hour together, spend it not on flowersor wine, but the whole of the summer sky and a grass ditch.For thousands of seconds we kiss; your hairlike treasure on the ground; the Midas lightturning your limbs to gold. Time slows, for herewe are millionaires, backhanding the nightso nothing dark will end our shining hour,no jewel hold a candle to the cuckoo spithung from the blade of grass at your ear,no chandelier or spotlight see you better litthan here. Now. Time hates love, wants love poor,but love spins gold, gold, gold from straw.
Carol Ann Duffy / quote
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18Undated
Uninvited, the thought of you stayed too late in my head,so I went to bed, dreaming you hard, hard, woke with your name,like tears, soft, salt, on my lips, the sound of its bright syllableslike a charm, like a spell.Falling in loveis glamorous hell; the crouched, parched heartlike a tiger ready to kill; a flame's fierce licks under the skin.Into my life, larger than life, beautiful, you strolled in. I hid in my ordinary days, in the long grass of routine,in my camouflage rooms. You sprawled in my gaze,staring back from anyone's face, from the shape of a cloud,from the pining, earth-struck moon which gapes at meas I open the bedroom door. The curtains stir. There you areon the bed, like a gift, like a touchable dream."You
Carol Ann Duffy / quote
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19Undated
Give me, you said, on our very first night,the forest. I rose from the bed and went out,and when I returned, you listened, enthralled,to the shadowy story I told.Give me the river,you asked the next night, then I’ll love you forever.I slipped from your arms and was gone,and when I came back, you listened, at dawn,to the glittering story I told.Give me, you said, the goldfrom the sun. A third time, I got up and dressed,and when I came home, you sprawled on my breast,for the dazzling story I told.Give me,the hedgerows, give me the fields,I slid from the warmth of our sheets, and when I returned, to kiss you from sleep,you stirred at the story I told.give me the silvery cold,of the moon. I pulled on my boots and my coat,but when i came back, moonlight on your throatoutshone the story I toldGive me, you howledon our sixth night together, the wind in the trees.You turned to the wall as I left,and when I came home, I saw you were deafto the blustering story I told.Give me the sky, all the spaceit can hold. I left you, the last night we loved,and when I returned, you were gone with the gold,and the silver, the river, the forest, the fields,and this is the story I’ve told."Give
Carol Ann Duffy / quote
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