“O sleepless as the river under thee, / Vaulting the sea, the prairies' dreaming sod, / Onto us lowliest sometime sweep, descend / And of the curveship lend a myth to God.”

“How many dawns, chill from his rippling restThe seagull’s wings shall dip and pivot him,Shedding white rings of tumult, building highOver the chained bay waters Liberty—Then, with inviolate curve, forsake our eyes As apparitional as sails that crossSome page of figures to be filed away;—Till elevators drop us from our day ...”

“One must be drenched in words, literally soaked in them, to have the right ones form themselves into the proper pattern at the right moment.”

“Permit me voyage, love, into your hands... ”

“Love: a burnt match skating in a urinal. ”

“I wanted you, nameless Woman of the South,No wraith, but utterly—as still more aloneThe Southern Cross takes nightAnd lifts her girdles from her, one by one—High, cool, wide from the slowly smoldering fireOf lower heavens,— vaporous scars!Eve! Magdalene! or Mary, you?Whatever call—falls vainly on the wave.O simian Venus, homeless Eve,Unwedded, stumbling gardenless to grieveWindswept guitars on lonely decks forever;Finally to answer all within one grave!And this long wake of phosphor, iridescentFurrow of all our travel—trailed derision!Eyes crumble at its kiss. Its long-drawn spellIncites a yell. Slid on that backward visionThe mind is churned to spittle, whispering hell.I wanted you . . . The embers of the CrossClimbed by aslant and huddling aromatically.It is blood to remember; it is fireTo stammer back . . . It isGod—your namelessness. And the wash— All night the water combed you with blackInsolence. You crept out simmering, accomplished.Water rattled that stinging coil, yourRehearsed hair—docile, alas, from many arms.Yes, Eve—wraith of my unloved seed!The Cross, a phantom, buckled—dropped below the dawn.Light drowned the lithic trillions of your spawn.”

“And so it was I entered the broken worldTo trace the visionary company of love, its voiceAn instant in the wind (I know not whither hurled)But not for long to hold each desperate choice.”