Vera Pavlova Quotes & Sayings

Let us touch each other
while we still have hands,
palms, forearms, elbows ...
Let us love each other for misery,
torture each other, torment,
disfigure, maim,
to remember better,
to part with less pain. — Vera Pavlova

Poetry should be written the way adultery is committed: on the run, on the sly, during the time not accounted for. And then you come home, as if nothing ever happened, — Vera Pavlova

Thought's surface: word.
Word's surface: gesture.
Gesture's surface: skin.
Skin's surface: shiver. — Vera Pavlova

Dropped
and falling
from such
heights
for so
long
that
maybe
I will have
enough time
to learn
flying — Vera Pavlova

The only thing I hope for is that, regardless of what the outward world is for different people, different nations, I hope their internal world is similar. And if I, hopefully, have managed to somehow describe my inner world in this book, all I count on is that it will have some resonance among the American readers, or, at the very least, the American readers will treat this book as a kind of a guidebook for my inner world, strange as it may appear. — Vera Pavlova

A Remedy for Insomnia
Not sheep coming down the hills,
not cracks on the ceiling
count the ones you loved,
the former tenants of dreams
who would keep you awake,
once meant the world to you,
rocked you in their arms,
those who loved you ...
You will fall asleep, by dawn, in tears. — Vera Pavlova

I have brushed my teeth.
This day and I are even. — Vera Pavlova

I broke your heart.
Now barefoot I tread
on shards. — Vera Pavlova

Basked in the sun,listened to birds,licked off raindrops,and only in flightthe leaf saw the treeand graspedwhat it had been. — Vera Pavlova

We lay down, and the pain let up.
We embraced, and the pain let go:
no more scalding regrets,
no scorching remorse
that oppressed the soul,
that weighted like a stone on the heart.
You, on top of me, heavy, immense,
and I, feeling so light. — Vera Pavlova

... if necessary, the books shall be divided as follows:
you get the odd, I get the even pages;
"the books" are understood to mean the ones we used to read aloud
together, when we would interrupt our reading for a kiss,
and would get back to the book after half an hour ... — Vera Pavlova

The first kiss in the morning
tastes like the first kiss on earth.
My waking soul is innocent,
as I lie next to the tenant
of my best dreams.
When I caress him I know:
a kiss is preverbal,
a word is a kiss's junior. — Vera Pavlova

Why is the word yes so brief?
it should be
the longest,
the hardest,
so that you could not decide in an instant to say it,
so that upon reflection you could stop
in the middle of saying it. — Vera Pavlova