“DONT EVER BE AFRAID TO COME TO ME N CRY ...DONT EVER HESITATE TO LOOK ME N THE EYE DONT EVER BE AFRAID TO TELL ME HOW YOU FEEL. REMEMBAER YOUR MY GIRL N WE GOTTA KEEP IT REAL.”

“I’ve not learned the acceptable way of saying you fascinate me...I’ve not even learned how to say I like you without frightening people away-”

“I grow old though pleased with my memoriesThe tasks I can no longer completeAre balanced by the love of the tasks gone pastI offer no apology onlythis plea: When I am frayed and strained and drizzle at the endPlease someone cut a square and put me in a quiltThat I might keep some child warmAnd some old person with no one else to talk toWill hear my whispersAnd cuddlenear”

“Ego TrippingI was born in the congoI walked to the fertile crescent and built the sphinxI designed a pyramid so tough that a star that only glows every one hundred years falls into the center giving divine perfect lightI am badI sat on the throne drinking nectar with allahI got hot and sent an ice age to europe to cool my thirstMy oldest daughter is nefertiti the tears from my birth pains created the nileI am a beautiful womanI gazed on the forest and burned out the sahara desert with a packet of goat's meat and a change of clothesI crossed it in two hoursI am a gazelle so swift so swift you can't catch me For a birthday present when he was threeI gave my son hannibal an elephant He gave me rome for mother's dayMy strength flows ever onMy son noah built new/ark andI stood proudly at the helm as we sailed on a soft summer dayI turned myself into myself and was jesus men intone my loving name All praises All praisesI am the one who would saveI sowed diamonds in my back yardMy bowels deliver uranium the filings from my fingernails are semi-precious jewels On a trip northI caught a cold and blewMy nose giving oil to the arab worldI am so hip even my errors are correctI sailed west to reach east and had to round off the earth as I went The hair from my head thinned and gold was laid across three continentsI am so perfect so divine so ethereal so surrealI cannot be comprehended except by my permissionI mean...I...can fly like a bird in the sky...”

“You must be unintimidated by your own thoughts because if you write with someone looking over you shoulder, you'll never write.”

“Writers don't write from experience, although many are hesitant to admit that they don't. ...If you wrote from experience, you'd get maybe one book, maybe three poems. Writers write from empathy.”

“And you will understand all too soonThat you, my children of battle, are your heroes”