He could not stand. It was notThat he could not thrive, he was bornWith everything but the will –That can be deformed, just like a limb.Death was more interesting to him.Life could not get his attention.
Nobody wanted your dance,Nobody wanted your strange glitter, your flounderingDrowning life and your effort to save yourself,Treading water, dancing the dark turmoil,Looking for something to give.
The inmost spirit of poetry, in other words, is at bottom, in every recorded case, the voice of pain – and the physical body, so to speak, of poetry, is the treatment by which the poet tries to reconcile that pain with the world.
What’s writing really about? It’s about trying to take fuller possession of the reality of your life.
Even the most misfitting childWho’s chanced upon the library’s worth,Sits with the genius of the EarthAnd turns the key to the whole world.–“Hear It Again
In writing these poems about relatives, I found it almost impossible to write about the mother. I was stuck. My feelings about my mother, you see, must be too complicated to easily flow into words.
So we found the end of our journey.So we stood, alive in the river of light,Among the creatures of light, creatures of light.
There is no better way to know us Than as two wolves, come separately to a wood.
In those days I coercedOracular assuranceIn my favour out of every sign.
The only thing people regret is that they didn’t live boldy enough, that they didn’t invest enough heart, didn’t love enough. Nothing else really counts at all.