“I am terrified by this dark thingThat sleeps in me;All day I feel its soft, feathery turnings, its malignity.Clouds pass and disperse.Are those the faces of love, those pale irretrievables?Is it for such I agitate my heart?I am incapable of more knowledge.What is this, this faceSo murderous in its strangle of branches? -Its snaky acids kiss.It petrifies the will. These are the isolate, slow faultsThat kill, that kill, that kill.From the poem "Elm", 19 April 1962”

“ELMI know the bottom, she says. I know it with my great tap root: It is what you fear.I do not fear it: I have been there.Is it the sea you hear in me, Its dissatisfactions?Or the voice of nothing, that was your madness?Love is a shadow.How you lie and cry after itListen: these are its hooves: it has gone off, like a horse.All night I shall gallop thus, impetuously,Till your head is a stone, your pillow a little turf, Echoing, echoing.Or shall I bring you the sound of poisons? This is rain now, this big hush.And this is the fruit of it: tin-white, like arsenic.I have suffered the atrocity of sunsets. Scorched to the rootMy red filaments burn and stand, a hand of wires.Now I break up in pieces that fly about like clubs. A wind of such violenceWill tolerate no bystanding: I must shriek.The moon, also, is merciless: she would drag me Cruelly, being barren.Her radiance scathes me. Or perhaps I have caught her.I let her go. I let her goDiminished and flat, as after radical surgery. How your bad dreams possess and endow me.I am inhabited by a cry. Nightly it flaps outLooking, with its hooks, for something to love.I am terrified by this dark thing That sleeps in me;All day I feel its soft, feathery turnings, its malignity.Clouds pass and disperse.Are those the faces of love, those pale irretrievables? Is it for such I agitate my heart?I am incapable of more knowledge. What is this, this faceSo murderous in its strangle of branches?——Its snaky acids hiss.It petrifies the will. These are the isolate, slow faults That kill, that kill, that kill.--written 19 April 1962”

“Clouds pass and disperse.Are those the faces of love, those pale irretrievables?Is it for such I agitate my heart?”

“I am inhabited by a cry. Nightly it flaps outLooking, with its hooks, for something to love.--from "Elm", written 19 April 1962”

“Is it the sea you hear in me,Its dissatisfactions?Or the voice of nothing, that was you madness?--from "Elm", written 19 April 1962”

“I have suffered the atrocity of sunsets.--from "Elm", written 19 April 1962”