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Anthony Liccione (b. October 9, 1968) emerged from hardship, raised in a broken family, moving among homes and even living in his car during his teenage years, yet found solace in writing. His journey as poet and author reflects that struggle: his journals grew into published volumes such as Back Words and Forward, Please Pass Me the Blood & Butter, Wolf Down, and Symmetry. His poems appear in many literary journals. He now balances life in Texas, service in the Army National Guard, and raising two children. His work inspires through unflinching honesty, about loss, suffering, resilience and shows how art can give voice to shadows and turn survival into strength.
"Trust is like a two-way mirror, transparent on one side, with a blind dimness unable to see through on the other side."
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"And when the earth began to rumble and quake, as fear and frantic set in, he ran back inside the house past his wife and children, gathering all the valuables and things he thought of importance, and ran back to his car packing away. After making two trips in and out, he waited in the car for his family to come out, in fear they darted through the darkness and pelting cold rain. When everything calmed down, and the house was intact and safe, he returned putting everything back in its place, had the kids go to bed, told his wife he loves her and turned off the light."
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"The chains that break you, are the chains that make you. And the chains that make you, are the chains you break."
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"Not all light is good. There is negative light, that can cast bad shadows."
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"Nothing is in the middle of somewhere, surrounded by everything, where everyone is someplace, and still lacking the someone, I need most."
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"Foolishness sleeps soundly, while knowledge turns with each thinking hour, longing for the dawn of answers."
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"Life turns, and returns death. Where death digs its claws into the grave only to pull out life, as a baby from a womb; and the recycle of air, the recycle of struggles that never achieve satisfaction, in a constant turning world, of an untuned universe."
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"Trying to change someone, and their views, is like throwing paper into a fire."
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"They can stop a river by building a dam, but I will be damned if they can stop my river of blood flowing through my veins and heart."
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"Everyone has their own calling, but not everyone is looking for the phone, or either they missed the call, or just not answered it."
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"If I was your mirror, you would look for me more, than you do me."
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"Umbrellas raining upon me, as these cloudy tears give me shelter."
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"The beauty on the inside, will determine the ugly on the outside."
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"I have rubbed, knocked and brushed up against a thousand windows, trying to get an image."
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"It is better to tell the truth and face the punishment, than to lie and face the consequences."
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"The only depth where I can breathe, and don't need to fight for air, is in your love."
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"Sometimes you need to go through many small doors, to get to that big door of opportunity."
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"Closed mouths, only lead to closed gates. Share your salvation!"
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"As a child, I was afraid of the dark and the monsters on the outside.As a man, I run away from the light, afraid to show the monsters within."
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"In the beginning, some people try to appear that everything about them is "in black and white," until later their true colors come out."
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"A small world where people know each other, and still so deep, able to get lost."
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"I see you better in music, I hear you better in wind, I feel you more in a flooding moonlight, that understands nothing, but darkness and silence."
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"When I awake thinking of dreams I slept on, I often wonder, if the dreams ever wake up thinking of me?"