“Love me this first day of June.I'd rather sleep with ashes than priestly wisdom.Of all the lonely places in the world this is best where debris is human.I kiss the precious ashes that fall from fiery flesh.On these familiar shapes I lay my kisses down.”

“Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.”

“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.”

“My heart sings of your longing for me, and my thoughts climb down to marvel at your mercy. I do not fear as you gather up my days. Your name is the sweetness of time, and you carry me close into the night, speaking consolations, drawing down lights from the sky, saying, See how the night has no terrors for one who remembers the name.”

“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 almost went to bedwithout rememberingthe four white violetsI put in the button-holeof your green sweaterand how i kissed you thenand you kissed meshy as though I’dnever been your lover”

“When I have not rage or sorrow, and you depart from me, then I am most afraid. When the belly is full, and the mind has its sayings, then I fear for my soul; I rush to you as a child at night breaks into its parents' room. Do not forget me in my satisfaction. When the heart grins at itself, the world is destroyed. And I am found alone with the husks and the shells. Then the dangerous moment comes: I am too great to ask for help. I have other hopes. I legislate from the fortress of my disappointments, with a set jaw. Overthrow this even terror with a sweet remembrance: when I was with you, when my soul delighted you, when I was what you wanted. My heart sings of your longing for me, and my thoughts climb down to marvel at your mercy. I do not fear as you gather up my days. Your name is the sweetness of time, and you carry me close into the night, speaking consolations, drawing down lights from the sky, saying, See how the night has no terror for one who remembers the Name.”