My wife with the hair of a wood fireWith the thoughts of heat lightningWith the waist of an hourglassWith the waist of an otter in the teeth of a tigerMy wife with the lips of...

Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.But you are eternity and you are the mirror.

A poem was a box for your soul. That was the point. It was the place where you could save bits of yourself, and shake out your darkest feelings, without worrying that people would think...

Our two souls therefore, which are one, Though I must go, endure not yet A breach, but an expansion, Like gold to aery thinness beat. If they be two, they are two so As stiff...

I love you just the way you arebut you don’t see you like I do.You shouldn’t try so hard to be perfect.Trust me, perfect should try to be you.

The fear of poetry is an indication that we are cut off from our own reality.

… I slipped our wicker bed and walked the sands where we were also roughly repeated: some young couple, “you did,” “I didn’t,” “you sure the fuck did” – they huggedthat bicker to their chests...

She lends her pen,to thoughts of him,that flow from it,in her solitary.For she is his poet,And he is her poetry.

I sometimes think you despise poetry,’ said Phineas. ‘When it is false I do. The difficulty is to know when it is false and when it is true.

The Inner Self…What makes us who we areshould be glorifiedpersonifiedand sung unto the stars!

In writing I try to pare down the descriptive bits. If I feel that I could say something in as few words as possible, then I would rather do it than to go on padding....

…flames moved towards himand dropped within-singed and marred his tender skin …(the frightful plight tale)

That night we made love “the real way” which we had not yet attemptedalthough married six months.Big mystery. No one knew where to put their leg and to this day I’m not surewe got it...

You do not have to be good.You do not have to walk on your kneesfor a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it...

Had we but world enough, and time

The sweetness of dogs (fifteen) What do you say, Percy? I am thinkingof sitting out on the sand to watchthe moon rise. Full tonight.So we goand the moon rises, so beautiful it makes me shudder,...

If it chance your eye offends you,Pluck it out lad, and be sound:’Twill hurt, but here are salves to friend you,And many a balsam grows on ground.And if your hand or foot offend you,Cut it...

Writing is the light of imagination playing over shadow of thoughts.

Democracy! Bah! When I hear that I reach for my feather boa!

Today, find a point of stillness: brief, but precious slight, but full small, but luminously real. Find a point stillness in the balance of all things between the breathing out and breathing in.

One should always be drunk. That’s all that matters…But with what? With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you chose. But get drunk.

No one could say the stories were uselessfor as the tongue clackedfive or forty fingers stitchedcorn was grated from the huskpathwork was piecedor the darning was done…(from ‘The Storyteller Poems’)

Time to get drunk!Don’t be martyred slaves of Time,Get drunk!Stay drunk!On wine, virtue, poetry, whatever!

At breakfast!’ said Louise in an awed voice. ‘A man who can read poetry at breakfast would be capable of anything.

People with yuan fen are destined to like one another;Friendship develops even if a thousand miles apart.But should yuan fen be absent between two individuals,They will remain strangers despite sitting face-to-face

THIS IS WHYHe will never be given to wonder muchif he was the mouth for some cruel forcethat said it. But if he were(this will comfort her) less than one momentout of millions had he...

The inkstand is full of ink, and the paper lies white and unspotted, in the round of light thrown by a candle. Puffs of darkness sweep into the corners, and keep rolling through the room...

Malam ini, ia ingin sekali tengadah ke langit gelap penuh bintang di dalam hutan itu. Ia ingin malam ini bulan hanya berbentuk sabit dan tak banyak lolongan hewan agar ia bisa menatap langit sendiri saja...

seeing a woman cough today made me sense a vague fear of death

I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

Tonight, I decided to take a stroll down to my local liquor store. Maybe I’ll find a refreshment to wash down this full moon. I hate showing up & the clerk fucking knows my name,...

I love you as the plant that never blooms but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers; thanks to your love a certain solid fragrence risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body....

Yver, vous n’estes qu’un villain,Esté est plaisant et gentil,En tesmoing de May et d’AvrilQui l’acompaignent soir et main.Esté revest champs, bois et fleurs,De sa livrée de verdureEt de maintes autres couleurs,Par l’ordonnance de Nature.Mais vous,...

a bruise, bluein the muscle, youimpinge upon me.As bone hugs the ache home, soI’m vexed to love you, your bodythe shape of returns, your hair a torsoof light, your heatI must have, your openingI’d eat,...

We may feel bitterly how little our poems can do in the face of seemingly out of control technological power and seemingly limitless corporate greed, yet it has always been true that poetry can break...

i want to go to the gymand pretend the weight machines are drumsand play the longest drum solo on them

And the silence, it cuts me. The silence, it gores me,Spilling my blood as the rain falls on me.Excerpt from “Silence

When composing a verse let there not be a hair’s breath separating your mind from what you write; composition of a poem must be done in an instant, like a woodcutter felling a huge tree...

Gather the stars if you wish it soGather the songs and keep them.Gather the faces of women.Gather for keeping years and years.And then…Loosen your hands, let go and say good-bye.Let the stars and songs go.Let...

UPYou wake up filled with dread.There seems no reason for it.Morning light sifts through the window,there is birdsong,you can’t get out of bed.It’s something about the crumpled sheetshanging over the edge like junglefoliage, the terry...

She reads his poems gratefully in her small Mississippi town. It’s an undramatic life, yet these past months she seems to have found the intensity he yearns for, This also sounds like bragging, though she...

…the winter is kind and leaves red berries on the boughs for hungry sparrows…

One writes because one has been touched by the yearning for and the despair of ever touching the Other.

…red sings like summer in the shadows, hot on my tongue…

It is beautiful to express love and even more beautiful to feel it.

Contemplating from the confines of a desk the reality of death is worthwhile, but only moderately enriching. Too often do I resort to it; rarely do I get with death in the ring.

If we were to understand how important it is to say something and say it well, maybe we wouldn’t write a single word, but that would be tragic.

…I’m constantly agitated, restless – I work moments like worry beads until I see your face…

Nothing is inanimate; what is the rest is our interpretation.

For darkness restores what light cannot repair.