“I once lay in awhite hospitalfor the dying and the dyingself, where some god pissed a rain ofreason to make things growonly to die, where on my kneesI prayed for LIGHT,I prayed for l*i*g*h*t,and prayingcrawled like a blind slug into thewebwhere threads of wind stuck against my mindand I died of pityfor Man, for myself,on a cross without nails,watching in fear asthe pig belches in his sty, farts,blinks and eats.”

“where some god pissed a rain of reason to make things grow only to die,”

“but as God said, crossing his legs, I see where I have made plenty of poets but not so very much poetry.”

“Some nights I knew that if I slept I would die.”

“Ihave a face like a washrag. I singlove songs and carry steel.I would rather die than cry. I can'tstand hounds can't live without them.I hang my head against the whiterefrigerator and want to scream likethe last weeping of life forever butI am bigger than the mountains.”

“how come you're so ugly?""my life has hardly been pretty — the hospitals, the jails, the jobs, the women, the drinking. some of my critics claim that i have deliberately inflicted myself with pain. i wish that some of my critics had been along with me for the journey. it’s true that i haven't always chosen easy situations but that's a hell of a long ways from saying that i leaped into the oven and locked the door. hangover, the electric needle, bad booze, bad women, madness in small rooms, starvation in the land of plenty, god knows how i got so ugly, i guess it just comes from being slugged and slugged again and again, and not going down, still trying to think, to feel, still trying to put the butterfly back together again…it’s written a map on my face that nobody would ever want to hang on their wall.sometimes i’ll see myself somewhere…suddenly…say in a large mirror in a supermarket…eyes like little mean bugs…face scarred, twisted, yes, i look insane, demented, what a mess…spilled vomit of skin…yet, when i see the “handsome” men i think, my god my god, i’m glad i’m not them”

“Once a woman turns against you, forget it. They can love you, then something turns in them. They can watch you dying in a gutter, run over by a car, and they'll spit on you.”