“Saint or stranger, I still recklessly seek you.”

“This is a Personal PoemMy self's self is thinking about itself.Trying to sell its self a new self.Don't worry, reader,I'm not trying to fool you with language,I have eyes to do that with.I have forgotten our history,I have forgotten how we met.Reader, are you upset at how fast we're moving?I'm likely with you in your bed,between your hands, somewherein your mouth beforewhatever it is you'll say next.Say yes and now and love too.Say what did Judith Butler say when saying, " … one is undone, in the face of the other, by the touch, by the scent, by the feel, by the prospect of the touch,by the memory of the feel."I want to know you, reader.I want to know a lot of things.Can we ever truly forget about ourselves?Is every self a self that makes itself available to love?Like death. And its kind availability.Like language, reader,would we still be so unhappy if we could escape it?To name the namelessness that is love, in what we read, and what we see,and what are feelings really?Facts or flaws,or something tells me nowthat I must leave you, reader.It's not you, it's me.We guess at why things end, we ruin things, we start and stall,and all all all we dois want.”

“It's not just college grades that fall in a curve. Human decency is bell-shaped, with some of us slopping over the edges. Saints on one end, sinners on the other.”

“When I awake, the world is still gone.”

“What had happened to the old Jack Grammar, the one who would have flubbed it somehow?Well, I reasoned: I could still flub it. Let the flubbing begin!”

“Then Jack takes me in his arms, and although I am still distraught, I cannot help but notice how well I fit in them, my head perfectly right for the crook of his neck.”

“I certainly wasn't seeking any degree, the way a college confers a status symbol upon its students. My homemade education gave me, with every additional book that I read, a little bit more sensitivity to the deafness, dumbness and blindness that was afflicting the black race in America. Not long ago, an English writer telephoned me, asking questions. One was, "What's your alma mater?" I told him, "Books.”