“I heard an airplane passing overhead. I wished I was on it.”

“I wish to weepbut sorrow isstupid.I wish to believebut belief is agraveyard.”

“Zircoff," I said, "put the tomatoes away." "Piss," he said, "I wish they were hand grenades.”

“I wish I were driving a blue 1952 Buickor a dark blue 1942 Buickor a blue 1932 Buickover a cliff of hell and into thesea.”

“as shedrove me through the hills everything screamed inside ofme, and I kept saying as we drove along(to myself, of course)fucker, it will pass,everything passes,it's all a jokea joke on you”

“I suppose like othersI have come through fire and sword,love gone wrong,head-on crashes, drunk at sea,and I have listened to the simple sound of water runningin tubsand wished to drown”

“Christmas poem to a man in jailhello Bill Abbott:I appreciate your passing around my books injail there, my poems and stories.if I can lighten the load for some of those guys withmy books, fine.but literature, you know, is difficult for theaverage man to assimilate (and for the unaverage man too);I don't like most poetry, for example,so I write mine the way I like to read it.”