“Look: I am nothing.I do not even have ashes to rub into my eyes.”

“Good evening charlie, yes I know you rise, two lean grey spiders drifting through your eyes.”

“A BlessingJust off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.And the eyes of those two Indian poniesDarken with kindness.They have come gladly out of the willowsTo welcome my friend and me.We step over the barbed wire into the pastureWhere they have been grazing all day, alone.They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happinessThat we have come.They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.There is no loneliness like theirs.At home once more,They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,For she has walked over to meAnd nuzzled my left hand.She is black and white,Her mane falls wild on her forehead,And the light breeze moves me to caress her long earThat is delicate as the skin over a girl's wrist.Suddenly I realizeThat if I stepped out of my body I would breakInto blossom.”

“Suddenly I realizeThat if I stepped out of my body I would breakInto blossom. ”

“To speak in a flat voiceIs all that I can do.I have gone every placeAsking for you.Wondering where to turnAnd how the search would endAnd the last streetlight spinAbove me blind. Then I returned rebuffedAnd saw under the sunThe race not to the swiftNor the battle won. Liston dives in the tank,Lord, in Lewiston, Maine,And Ernie Doty's drunkIn hell again. And Jenny, oh my JennyWhom I love, rhyme be damned,Has broken her spare beautyIn a whorehouse old.She left her new babyIn a bus-station can,And sprightly danced awayThrough Jacksontown.Which is a place I know,One where I got picked upA few shrunk years agoBy a good cop.Believe it, Lord, or not.Don't ask me who he was.I speak of flat defeatIn a flat voice. I have gone forward with Some, a few lonely some. They have fallen to death. I die with them. Lord, I have loved Thy cursed,The beauty of Thy house:Come down. Come down. Why dostThou hide thy face?”

“I would rather live my life than not live it.”

“The JewelThere is this caveIn the air behind my bodyThat nobody is going to touch:A cloister, a silenceClosing around a blossom of fire.When I stand upright in the wind,My bones turn to dark emeralds.”