“He knew that hair couldn't feel; he kissed her hair.”

“My friends are gone and my hair is grey.I ache in places I used to play.And I’m crazy for love but I’m not coming on.I’m just paying my rent every day in the tower of song.”

“I loved you when you opened like a lily to the heat; you see I’m just another snowman standing in the rain and sleet who loved you with his frozen love, his second hand physique, with all he is and all he was a thousand kisses deep.”

“You have the lovers,they are nameless, their histories only for each other,and you have the room, the bed, and the windows.Pretend it is a ritual.Unfurl the bed, bury the lovers, blacken the windows,let them live in that house for a generation or two.No one dares disturb them.Visitors in the corridor tip-toe past the long closed door,they listen for sounds, for a moan, for a song:nothing is heard, not even breathing.You know they are not dead,you can feel the presence of their intense love.Your children grow up, they leave you,they have become soldiers and riders.Your mate dies after a life of service.Who knows you? Who remembers you?But in your house a ritual is in progress:It is not finished: it needs more people.One day the door is opened to the lover's chamber.The room has become a dense garden,full of colours, smells, sounds you have never known.The bed is smooth as a wafer of sunlight,in the midst of the garden it stands alone.In the bed the lovers, slowly and deliberately and silently,perform the act of love.Their eyes are closed,as tightly as if heavy coins of flesh lay on them.Their lips are bruised with new and old bruises.Her hair and his beard are hopelessly tangled.When he puts his mouth against her shouldershe is uncertain whether her shoulderhas given or received the kiss.All her flesh is like a mouth.He carries his fingers along her waistand feels his own waist caressed.She holds him closer and his own arms tighten around her.She kisses the hand besider her mouth.It is his hand or her hand, it hardly matters,there are so many more kisses.You stand beside the bed, weeping with happiness,you carefully peel away the sheetsfrom the slow-moving bodies.Your eyes filled with tears, you barely make out the lovers,As you undress you sing out, and your voice is magnificentbecause now you believe it is the first human voiceheard in that room.The garments you let fall grow into vines.You climb into bed and recover the flesh.You close your eyes and allow them to be sewn shut.You create an embrace and fall into it.There is only one moment of pain or doubtas you wonder how many multitudes are lying beside your body,but a mouth kisses and a hand soothes the moment away.”

“I am locked in a very expensive suitold elegant and enduringOnly my hair has been able to get freebut someone has been leavingtheir dandruff in itNow I will tell youall there is to know about optimismEach day in hub cap mirrorin soup reflectionin other people's spectaclesI check my hairfor an army of alpinistsfor Indian rope trick mastersfor tangled aviatorsfor dove and albatrossfor insect suicidesfor abominable snowmenI check my hairfor aerialists of every kindDedicated as an automatic elevatorI comb my hair for possibilitiesI stick my neck outI lean illegally from locomotive windowsand only for the barberdo I wear a hat”

“Your servant here, he has been toldto say it clear, to say it cold:It's over, it ain't goingany furtherAnd now the wheels of heaven stopyou feel the devil's riding cropGet ready for the future:it is murder ”

“I am running through a snowfall which is her thighs, he dramatized in purple. Her thighs are filling up the street. Wide as a snowfall, heavy as huge falling Zeppelins, her damp thighs are settling on the sharp roofs and wooden balconies. Weather-vanes press the shape of roosters and sail-boats into the skin. The faces of famous statues are preserved like intaglios....”