“On soft Spring nights I'll stand in the yard under the stars - Something good will come out of all things yet - And it will be golden and eternal just like that - There's no need to say another word.”

“Say the word. Say the word and I won't go.Say the word, Qhuinn. Do it and I'll spend the night with you.Better yet, why don't you just kiss me-”

“Something good will come of all things yet”

“The world ain't so bad, when you got Japhies, I thought, and felt glad. All the aching muscles and the hunger in my belly were bad enough, and the surroundant dark rocks, the fact that there is nothing to soothe you with kisses and soft words, but just to be sitting there meditating and praying for the world with another earnest young man -- 'twere good enough to have been born just to die, as we all are. Something will come of it in the Milky Ways of eternity stretching in front of all our phantom unjaundiced eyes, friends. I felt like telling Japhy everything I thought but I knew it didn't matter and moreover he knew it anyway and silence is the golden mountain.”

“Cal says that humans are made from the nuclear ash of dead stars. He says that when I die, I'll return to dust, glitter,rain. If thats true, I want to be buried right here under this tree. Its roots will reach into the soft mess of my body and suck me dry. I'll be re-formed as apple blossom. I'll drift down in the spring like confetti and cling to my family's shoes. They'll carry me in their pockets to help them sleep. What dreams will they have then?”

“When the end comes, dark and hungry I'll be alone, love When the end comes, black and starving I'll say good-bye, love.-from Golden Tongue: The Poems of Steven Slaughter”