“As I grew older, I understood that instructions came with this voice. What were these instructions? The instructions were never to lament casually. And if one is to express the great inevitable defeat that awaits us all, it must be done within the strict confines of dignity and beauty.”

“F. once said: At sixteen I stopped fucking faces. I had occasioned the remark by expressing disgust at his latest conquest, a young hunchback he had met while touring an orphanage. F. spoke to me that day as if I were truly one of the underprivileged; or perhaps he was not speaking to me at all when he muttered: Who am I to refuse the universe?”

“Even without the mushroom cloudstill I would have hatedListenI would have done the same thingseven if there were no deathI will not be held like a drunkardunder the cold tap of factsI refuse the universal alibi”

“The older I get, the surer I am that I’m not running the show.”

“In My Secret Life""I saw you this morning,you were moving so fast.Can't seem to loosen my gripOn the past.And I miss you so much,there's no one in sight.And we're still making loveIn my secret life.I smile when I am angry,I cheat and I lie,I do what I have to doto get by,In my secret life.”

“Undertow""I set out one nightWhen the tide was lowThere were signs in the skyBut I did not knowI'd be caught in the gripOf the undertowDitched on a beachWhere the sea hates to goWith a child in my armsAnd a chill in my soulAnd my heart the shapeOf a begging bowl”

“The flowers that I left in the ground, that I did not gather for you, today I bring them all back, to let them grow forever, not in poems or marble, but where they fell and rotted. And the ships in their great stalls, huge and transitory as heroes, ships I could not captain, today I bring them back to let them sail forever, not in model or ballad, but where they were wrecked and scuttled. And the child on whose shoulders I stand, whose longing I purged with public, kingly discipline, today I bring him back to languish forever, not in confession or biography, but where he flourished, growing sly and hairy. It is not malice that draws me away, draws me to renunciation, betrayal: it is weariness, I go for weariness of thee, Gold, ivory, flesh, love, God, blood, moon- I have become the expert of the catalogue. My body once so familiar with glory, My body has become a museum: this part remembered because of someone's mouth, this because of a hand, this of wetness, this of heat. Who owns anything he has not made? With your beauty I am as uninvolved as with horses' manes and waterfalls. This is my last catalogue. I breathe the breathless I love you, I love you - and let you move forever.”