“oh god it’s wonderful to get out of bed and drink too much coffee and smoke too many cigarettes and love you so much”

“How funny you are today New Yorklike Ginger Rogers in Swingtimeand St. Bridget’s steeple leaning a little to the lefthere I have just jumped out of a bed full of V-days(I got tired of D-days) and blue you there stillaccepts me foolish and freeall I want is a room up thereand you in itand even the traffic halt so thick is a wayfor people to rub up against each otherand when their surgical appliances lockthey stay togetherfor the rest of the day (what a day)I go by to check a slide and I saythat painting’s not so bluewhere’s Lana Turnershe’s out eatingand Garbo’s backstage at the Meteveryone’s taking their coat offso they can show a rib-cage to the rib-watchersand the park’s full of dancers with their tights and shoesin little bagswho are often mistaken for worker-outers at the West Side Ywhy notthe Pittsburgh Pirates shout because they wonand in a sense we’re all winningwe’re alivethe apartment was vacated by a gay couplewho moved to the country for funthey moved a day too sooneven the stabbings are helping the population explosionthough in the wrong countryand all those liars have left the UNthe Seagram Building’s no longer rivalled in interestnot that we need liquor (we just like it)and the little box is out on the sidewalknext to the delicatessenso the old man can sit on it and drink beerand get knocked off it by his wife later in the daywhile the sun is still shiningoh god it’s wonderfulto get out of bedand drink too much coffeeand smoke too many cigarettesand love you so much”

“Too many poets act like a middle-aged mother trying to get her kids to eat too much cooked meat, and potatoes with drippings (tears). I don't give a damn whether they eat or not. Forced feeding leads to excessive thinness (effete). Nobody should experience anything they don't need to, if they don't need poetry bully for them. I like the movies too. And after all, only Whitman and Crane and Williams, of the American poets, are better than the movies.”

“There should be so much more, not of orange, of words, of how terrible orange is and life.”

“I don't believe in god, so I don't have to make elaborately sounded structures. ... Pain always produces logic, which is very bad for you. ... As for measure and other technical apparatus, that's just common sense: if you're going to buy a pair of pants you want them to be tight enough so everyone will want to go to bed with you. There's nothing metaphysical about it.”

“and the portrait show seems to have no faces in it at all, just paintyou suddenly wonder why in the world anyone ever did themI lookat you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in the worldexcept possibly for the Polish Rider occasionally and anyway it’s in the Frickwhich thank heavens you haven’t gone to yet so we can go together the first time”

“I've got to get out of here. I choose a piece of shawl and my dirtiest suntans. I'll be back, I'll re-emerge, defeated, from the valley; you don't want me to go where you go, so I go where you don't want me to.”