Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American poet Buddy Wakefield.
Last updated on November 21, 2024.
Buddy Wakefield is an American spoken word artist, a three-time poetry slam world champion, and the most toured performance poet in history. His works have been released by Strange Famous Records (CD), Righteous Babe Records (CD), and Write Bloody Publishing (books). He has lived in Sanborn, New York; Baytown, Texas; Seattle, Washington; and Los Angeles, California.
What paper planes and empty seats most have in common
is that they are best made by children still learning how to ride things out.
I choose to politely ask myself to step aside if I am in my own way. If I do not get out of my way, I choose to call a friend who will have me removed.
Forte is French… for blanket fort.
Pretend – inside your skin – you've got a friend, who's willing to give you everything you ever wanted in exchange for all you've ever been.
There is a point when tears don't work to wash things away anymore. Grabbing for breath has now broken my fingers.
Everything is out there. That's why they call it everything.
Make love to me like you know I am better than the worst thing I ever did.
Even good hearts know how to turn bad touch and genocide into clichés just to make room for more comfort.
But I still show up for gentleman practice in the company of lead dancers, hoping their grace will get stuck in my shoes.
Every moment is a brand new baby, Baby.
Every vow is a brave new voice.
The future gets no say in who we are.
Stop congregating in the valley just because an echo sounds good when it agrees with itself.
There was a typewriter buried alive in that horse, the one I road to get out of the flood.
Stop inviting walls into wide open spaces.
I should have told You before talking in terms of Forever that any given day wears me out and works me sour, that there are nights when the sky is so clear I stand obnoxious underneath it begging for the stars to shoot at me just so I can feel at Home.
Jordan tattoos the words "forgive me" in thick black letters down the inside of his arm so that when he looks at his wrist he will remember not to hate himself so much. What he keeps forgetting is that there is life after survival.
Hearts don't break, y'all. They bruise and get better.
If I didn't have so much of this life all wrong I would have gotten it right by now.
We can stick anything into the fog and make it look like a ghost.
A trajectory of misery – at this point – seems intentional.
We have all the information we need to see clearly.
We are no longer unaware toddlers on the landscape of consciousness.
It is no longer cute to crap ourselves.
You can call me an angry ghost when I'm gone, or laugh into my disposition. But my mom will still see me as her wide-eyed wanderer out behind the garage inventing ways to fend off dog attacks that will probably never happen.
We were never tragedies. We were emergencies. You go ahead, call 9-1-1. Tell them I'm havin' a fantastic time.
I don't care to be good, Sheriff. I care to be whole.
If we really do get what we give then I give up, so I can get up.
Knowing me is easy. You can still twist your hair and feel silly. Look up the word tacky and have a salad. But when we're together you pull bread apart with your fingers into bites sometimes so small I gotta remind you, Peach, it is okay to be hungry.
You're a free-standing landing pad held together by choir claps.
The truth is that this universe is gassy and unpredictable.
It still has not said excuse me for The Big Bang.
Sometimes we expect too much instead of practicing enough
or receiving in us just the right answer.
You, the Staggering Answer
I am standing like shoe polish on an overstocked shelf hoping that one day someone will pick me to make things better.
You are the home I point to that lives in my chest.
Love makes no mistakes.
If we were created in God’s image, then when God was a child he smushed fire ants with his fingertips and avoided tough questions.
...others, with halos shaped like rollercoasters you'd stand in line to ride twice.
How honest is it that we drink until we are dehydrated?
The first time my town saw the sky it sucker-punched us in the throat, left us breathless, said, I'm gonna keep you awake some nights without touching you. You'll make it up, the pain, you always do.
The best songs are the ones about Georgia, even though I've never been there. It's the only place I still believe in Jesus.
What children
and the landing of a plane
most have in common
is that they are best made
by a line drive of pilot lights guided
through a single tambourine
across the day we met
in a field of wet metal hands on The Gospel of Lightning.
I would fall in love with you if you would beat these people out of me.
We both spend our money on things that break too easily like… people.
I'm ready to kill something. I'll probably only get as far as my brain cells, but I am going to kill them.
Everybody knows that smiling is for little girls, the gays and certain kinds of fish who are smiling by accident.
You're not the only piece of patchwork birds can pull worms from.
...all these kids you can't seem to make sense of would stop holding you so far off the edge of your seats if you'd start holding yourselves to the promises you make. We know you're not perfect, because we're not. And I know I'm not perfect, but I believe I was meant to be.
If you've never been rocked back by the presence of purpose this poem is too soon for you. Return to your mediocrity, plug it into an amplifier and rethink yourself.