…some nights I’d sneak out and listen to the radio in my Dad’s old Chevy – children need solitude – they don’t teach that in school…
…the wet brush of snowflakes was like your kisses everywhere …
…no good writing flows from a polluted well – you can write about monsters, but you can’t be one…
…I don’t just wish you rain, Beloved – I wish you the beauty of storms…
…true love is an irrevocable act – you can only give your heart away once – after that, you give as much as you have left …
…I retreat into my fictional world where everything makes sense – but even there I can’t even control what people do…
…wherever there is society, there is authority and the temptation to disobedience because our individual wills refuse to submit…
…you think so logically…like a hawk soaring – I feel so chaotically…like a kite without a tail plummeting to earth…
…you fantasize about me reading my poems to you – it doesn’t work that way – I write down everything later – living is not an after-thought…
… here’s what I believe – sometimes God has a Plan B…
after life has broken you open, perhaps you may create art
…if you always move in certainty, your writing will be flat – creativity is a rugged terrain…
…is worship too strong a word? yes, I worship you – to worship is to give worth to something – isn’t that what love is all about?…
…art is weaker than life – in the end I have a bag of letters to scrabble into order – rune tiles to cast my fate…
…how are you sacred to me? your lines are golden threads – your patter, my patten – I explore the liturgy of your words…
…being with you was so easy and natural – there was no strain – I never had to guard my words…
…all this time I’ve been worshiping you – when other men wanted to kiss you, I’ve been offering the praise of my lips…
…you know I wanted a Madonna, not a whore – I made you sacred offering you my words…
…words are so strong and I am so timid – my soul ignores warnings and I end up covered with your paint …
…I gave you painted air – tears I couldn’t weep – truths I couldn’t speak – all the words that caught in my throat…
…you can be angry and silent, but it’s no use – there’s no distance in the spirit – besides, my words touch you more softly than my hands…
…when you’re hard and unyielding your words score me with lines – I hate lines – I want curves – curves are happy like a snowman …
…I need you to be a listener – you need me to hang word on. We’re friends because neither has discovered a limit where the other ends…
…you can use words if you wish, but I’m warning you – I’ve learned how to read your heart …
… only a seer or a lover would know that I’m making a jewelry of words for you -drawn from your essence -to flash and burn with your fire -so you can bedazzle with your own light …
…good words – that triumphalism of positivity- but life will claw and eat you – chew you over and over – if you carry such a small knife …
…why is my cat a Muse? the cat has the rare grace of never saying a word too much― Mark Twain …that’s why …
…come lie beside me again and understand – the others can show by actions, but I alone will immortalize you in words…
…perhaps in actions I’m less of a man – but, oh the words – such lovely words…
…you are my Lady of Shalott lost in a dream of isolation – I care too much for you – I romanticize depression…
I see you kneeling in church—stained only by colored windows
…all my life I prayed to a star – Later discovered it was Venus – I was praying to Aphrodite and wondering why she was sending me you -sad…
…poetry is paying attention to life when all the world seems asleep to its beauties and truths…
…goodness is not the absence of evil – it’s the light that pushes back the darkness…
…when you enter a room, my wound opens, but there is light, always light, when you come in…
…you want the sweetness of our beginning without the bitterness of our struggle – what are you asking – do you want light without shadow? …
…I’m innocent still -inside me are stained glass windows that have never been broken- and when I see your light it stains my soul with color …
…I will find once again the light of your beauty – your colored windows in the night…
…you either forgive a lover for abandoning you or you forgive God for taking them – either way you have to forgive…
…the best way to forgive someone is to enter into their sufferings …
…it’s easy to express romantic love – harder to manage daily love – to forgive failings close to feelings – to divide self from soul…
the heart aches through nights—the broken places of neglect
my soul has shadows – nooks and crannies where griefs, like cobwebs, collect
…there’s the suffering from love and the suffering from grief – either pain permanently scars the soul…
…you must never partly love or stop half way – because then, you become superficial and cannot be deeply hurt or loved…
…beneath torrents of spring rain, buds come to life – and we do too, beneath torments of tears…
…all winter the acorns and red Maple leaf moldered in silence – in the same way grief is gnawing at me – slowly, imperceptibly… consuming…
…a passing face together with his grief turned you into a weeping Madonna…
This will be a winter so desolate, only memory can fill the emptiness
…in my dream the shadings of your soul are the dark tincture of rain…
…sorrow binds us – I will always cherish you – my only disillusionment is unspoken words …
You don’t read to exercise the mind but to take voyages
The only difference between you and a dream is I haven’t woken up with you
…I live in Ireland every day in a drizzly dream of a Dublin walk…
December’s wintery breath is already clouding the pond, frosting the pane, obscuring summer’s memory…
…dark embers smolder inside me – one touch and they flare – who would have thought memory combustible, or near you bright sparks appear?…
…your memory is a warm stone hidden in my hand I’m always turning over…
…I want to live doubly – first with you and then afterwards in memory …
…I’ve decided … love is an eternity of slow motion replays …
I am your stone of necessity calling up spirits from rain puddles—your Magus of words
…Moonlight possesses no alchemy to transmute good motives to base, but it does excite love magic…
…loving a fairy lady with a magic song will leave you desolate on a cold hillside … but from there you can see the stars…
…the magic of love runs at cross purposes with the rhythm of living…
…yes I understand your spells—your sex magic—at least, I know this: all lights dim when you walk in…
…writers, like priests, should have compassion…and a sensitivity to pain…
…it took me a lifetime of glimpses, but now I see you completely – did I tell you you’re beautiful? so kind to animals, children and me…
…my heart rides the wind and my thoughts sail away – to a land below the horizon where I know you hide from me…
…all kinds of images swim like tropical fish in the bathysphere inside my skull …
I write small poems— the kind that fit on a postcard… and still can break your heart
..snow gently settles like dust in a shaft – for one moment there is no one else – only the wind like the hiss of an ice skate …
……and not out of fear or loneliness, but only to find myself again… for we have come too far my Life, to turn back now…
…across the snowy field the barn light gleams – it’s the loneliness of November twilight…
…the monk beat me to break my spirit, incensed I knew Acquinas – angry, I knew his riddle – beauty is what is pleasing to the eye – he wasn’t…
…here’s what I’ve learned – people will hurt you, but you don’t have to respond – not every mean comment or cruel act deserves to be noticed …
…a sensual life is a ghostly existence where you live on the surface and your soul passes through everything, touching nothing …
…if you don’t regard your word as a sacred covenant, then there is nothing in you I can honor …
…futility is being sorry while doing nothing to remove the cause …
…when people oppose your view, you can become a lightning rod, but if I were you, I’d let them stew…
…I lost my illusions in a black rain of bitterness – now what do you see in my eyes? How can you still love me? How can I be tender? …
…I’m not afraid of the opinions of others – but of being needed and coming up short …
…I deliberately spilled the black ink of despair because my perfect soul was a stained glass illusion – can you understand that?…
…what is sacred is the other person -we forget that sometimes – and fail to honor who they are …
… the scarlet thread,the red clay from which we were made, runs in tiny streams through all our veins, reminding us of where we began…
…we have entertained ourselves with the pornography of violence and inflamed passions that might otherwise have slumbered…
…we fear monsters because we fear the dark parts of ourselves…
…we each harbor a shadow self with shadowy motives and murky desires…
…people demonize certain types of crime – it’s a way of distancing ourselves from the monsters…
…ambition or contentment? This simple question led me back to a more balanced view of life and put me in touch with the Me I used to know…
the abyss you stare into and that stares back at you is your reflection in the mirror – we all have it – that shadow self – that dark heart…
…to know an other’s interior life you are his confessor or a writer – the one is admitted freely, the other intrudes by discerning of spirits
the struggle is not with others, but within us, to do what we are called to do
…there is no map of the soul because we make it up as we go…
…the wounds of the past and the scars of the present don’t disfigure me in your eyes – because you know the price I pay for loving you …
…the answer is not in the damn blank page – it’s in the days or years before and you have to dredge it up – exhume the past again …
suffering breaks us until there’s nothing left but gentleness
…it was inevitable I loved you – we were soul mates – for the same reason, we were fated to suffer…
…everything I treasure is broken – it’s of no use to anybody but me…
…you go back to liberate the captives and sadly realize, some want to remain tied down in the cave…
…the real absurdity is that to love is to suffer, but the reverse isn’t always true…
…it’s always somebody’s fault – I blame you for my helpless love – do you think I chose this? Your beauty compelled me…
…you can’t rationalize suffering – it’s indeterminate – the real unknowable variable God substitutes in…
…don’t be self-conscious – other people are completely unaware of you and more concerned with how they appear …
I will not exorcise you—I’d miss your fragrance, the soft tread of your step on the stair
burnt by the sunof your mouth, I’m unable to speak or paint you with words
I think there are lovely sunsets in hell—and that’s where my desire for you is sending me
There must always be a secret to be unwrapped at Christmas—that’s the rule
when I see you, I see mystery – a pale moon’s beauty behind a veil of cloud
…I’ve discovered why you fascinate – you keep the mystery and as Carlyle noted, Wonder is the basis of worship…
…with you, I find peace from pain – You are gentle and healing like the landscape—like rain…
…thinking about laughing with 2 yr old Findlay today – Dostoyevsky was right, “The soul is healed by being with children.” …
…in January, everything seems desolate. The Moon ascends to cold heights – and I, a ragged sky filled with dark kisses…lie abandoned by you…
…cities are murky places – hatching grounds for monsters…
… only darkened trails of rain could paint your face upon a pane…
…you can have a dark heart and be a writer, but you can’t have a black one..
…Sunday evenings are heavier than clouds with rain, darker too and often interminable…
…people quote proverbs without realizing they’re really in awe of the authority of their truth and the power of their expression…
…bow to genius, but to the authority of that genius – not the display of talent…
…how many writers still dare compare a woman to Nature, like Campion? – there is a garden in her face – how lovely…
…a writer without authority? Impossible. as Kenneth Burke says, creation implies authority in the sense of originator….
…it’s not the stories – it’s the pain and the joy and the people who stay with you long after the stories are told …
…it’s not the medium that’s the message – it’s consciousness – the wonder of being able to wonder …
…it begins with isolation – demons always inhabit desolate places…
…nobody ever takes from the desert anything but aridity and monsters…
…evil fascinates and repels us – it’s a terrible beauty that enthralls us the more we stare into it…
…don’t settle for pap – our thoughts wander through eternity – experience the wonder of being alive…
…you do violence with your words if you force them – art is given – the words received, moment by moment from unseen hands – call it a Muse …
…language always occurs in a context – you can speak Elizabethan words, but to speak the language you have to put on the mindset…
…that’s the essence of me – I don’t think, I feel – at best, I think-feel…
…you were there when they trampled me – you picked me up, healed me and gave me back my feelings – is it any wonder I love you?…
…the feelings that pass between us are deeper than fleshly touches…
…you want things to remain the same, which they never can, and so you’re wounded by your own feelings & resentful others don’t seem to care…
RedheadAll over the houseStrands of copper hairLike filaments from a cobwebCollect.If you and IWere ever to part— For months, perhaps years,I’d be combing out,Brushing or picking upStrands of significance,Traces of youIn my life
…we live in the same city but don’t see the same things – you see buildings and I see memories…
…everything is gone except traces of you inside me – and the years like the wind are sweeping those away …
…I recall that day on the beach – the sand so brilliant, the clouds so massive, and the wind punishing your hair…
…spiritual or emotional pain doesn’t become a memory so much as a bruise …
…everyone wants to be excited by something magical and wondrous – to be reminded of how they once saw the world …
…we went to watch the waves that bitter day and the wind took your red cap and mittens – blew them into the sea…
…strands of your hair and tendrils of the wind spin into nothingness the memories of that day…
…before you, life was desolate – the past hardly worth remembering – and now, each moment a keepsake I can’t throw away …
…every time I look at you autumn leaves come in between – does it matter they’re the color of your hair – or they still fall in my memory?…
…when I was a kid, Toronto streets were deserted and quiet on Sundays, except for the sound of church bells I stood on the sidewalk one December listening to the Christmas bells – I’ve never forgotten that moment…
…I remember the oily smoke of a cigarette suspended in a shaft of sunlight – with you, everything was beautiful…
…I hardly ever see your profile, but have I told you it’s beautiful? – like the soft gentle lines of snow…
…when someone is honest and vulnerable, they wring my heart – I want to hug them for being real…
…you disappoint me -I am the worst liar in the world – I can’t hide my pain or my need so I make a bouquet of my sorrows and give them to you …
…the winter is kind and leaves red berries on the boughs for hungry sparrows…
…when your heart is broken, don’t go silent – speak to God in his own language…
you cross the field in the snow leaving tracks in perfect whiteness …disturbing my placid universe…marking the landscape within me …
…at some point we must achieve our identity -we can’t be always in adolescence seeking who we are…
…you became lost in the maze of me – forgive me Love, for keeping you close…
our hearts break, and take us out of relationships that are too painful for us
A heart never breaks in the same pattern of pieces
…the heart breaks in so many different ways that when it heals, it will have fault lines …
…I didn’t want you flawless – I have a bare wall at home that’s flawless – I wanted your character trapped in the amber of your skin…
…if you’re an actor, and you’ve thought your way into the part, then you’re character portrayal will have authority…
…I committed a sin the day I refused you – I discovered metal inside me where my heart should be – forgive me, Love, for acting on principles…
…the making of stories is only one part of my craft -mainly, I’m a heart whisperer…
…you have changed everything for me- you rearranged the furniture and now you’ve changed the view from my window!…
…I look out at the world through your transparent face…
…consider yourself a functional character in someone else’s novel – a background character – a person on the street – that’s the perspective …
…you’ve lost perspective? Well, get it back – God alone has the third person point of view in this life …
… this longing inside me that never goes away, must be a poem…must be you …
…the wind hums low with sweet exultation, sings its lullaby, while you sleep …
…my dreams are tangled in images of stars and clouds and firelight – we go camping at night – it’s my lucid dream of being with you…
…freshly cut Christmas trees smelling of stars and snow and pine resin – inhale deeply and fill your soul with wintry night…
… paint in blue and black…sometimes gray – the colors of night – occasionally I surprise you with a mustard yellow, but then, I am a poet …
…careful the morning lest it wake from slumber the city half-encumbered by the morning mist …
…How terrible, those dreams before sleep were—the worse kind, mixing hope with despair…
…at morning, I’m unruffled – I’ll sit with my tea and Muse Cat beside me and listen to the soft chime of the grandfather clock…
…if it weren’t for you, mornings wouldn’t be so comforting – slippers wouldn’t scrape through the rooms of my heart…
…my heart is a desolate field over which geese vee, the sky turns and the days lie fallow…
…you can be talented as a wolf is breathtakingly fierce…silver and gray, like smoke in the trees – but what do you do with terrible beauty?…
…I see you as series of gestures, a palette of colors -all these tiny tiles pixelate, and then coalesce… into the idea of you…
…I pluck every day from my sweater or chair, red hairs…strands of significance, traces of you in my life …
all day long, one storm then another—and I take your hands like gentle flowers that blossom into awareness
…the most beautiful things don’t always make you happy – often they make you weep…
…I always thought youth were idealists – now, I’m not so sure – I’m more idealistic now then at 17…
…Tolstoy said, happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story – then what does that make us?…
…each person is required to ask, ‘what is my authority?’ – on what do you base your decisions? if it’s yourself, then you are without excuse…
…what makes a writer a prophet is his ability to speak truth…
…authority is the unmistakeable tone in the voice of a true writer…
…if you’ve got writer’s block, you aren’t empty – maybe it’s just like Twitter – overwhelmed, and loading seems to be taking a while…
…when you’re a writer, you become deeper and more uniquely distinct, the more you go inside yourself…
…If I ever got sloppy and maudlin, it would be for the streets of my childhood—but no self- respecting writer should ever eulogize a slum…
…I learn about the sacred in the everyday – I look in your face…
…I’ve marked our sacred place not with stones – I’ve put it my art to keep it safe…
you know the way of the wind in the night—the desolate alleys my soul takes
…I got to love solitude – to see the Moon rise and set – I had time to watch it trace the window square across the wall in silent grace…
Deb and I were married on a snowy night – wind cross-wove a veil of snow for her then threw confetti at us as we left the lighted church…
…I can think of other forms of worship than loving you, but none that make me feel so fulfilled…
…why do people venerate Einstein or Bill Gates? Clive Bell explains: Genius worship is the inevitable sign of an uncreative age….
…I worship at the temple of your body and without you, I’d have no art…
…when I chose you, I didn’t want the commonplace – I didn’t want a ‘partner’ – I wanted a shrine…
…but you – women like you are dangerous- ominous – take care, Love – men will first fear you, then later, turn you into a deity…
…I put you on the pedestal – made you a saint – dare I blaspheme?…
…don’t you realize a flawless profile means nothing when a mere smile drives me to desperation? Don’t you covet that power?..
the fragrance of pine resin is frankincense poured out—a balm of stars and snow and moonlit nights
…once I saw you in moonlight and I can tell you – the silvery dust of the stars doesn’t shimmer like you…
…you ask me why I compare you to stars – it’s simple – that’s where your goddess has fled…
…I can’t grasp the stars, but I love them – in the same way, I love you…
…I remember your profile in darkness outlined by stars …
I am in love with the stars of night – I have made them audible…
…when you look at the stars, you should tremble – only dullards have become callous to this frisson …
….my sacred landscape is the foothills of the stars – I go there often to sleep …
yes, writing is mostly a dream, but angels visit in dreams
You can be taught to write – you can’t be taught to be an artist
…at dawn, the grains of sleep turn to floating black spots, then out of focus the world tilts, and the cat scratches at the door…
…You say you don’t mistrust me, yet you quote Chrysostom – Hell is paved with priests’ skulls….
…you found me in my lonely labyrinth and like Beatrice, led me out of my own hell…
…some of the best love poems have been written by monks and nuns…
…if you’re an artist, you’ve submitted to authority…
…I see myself at crossroads in my life, mapless, lacking bits of knowledge – then, the Moon breaks through, lights up the path before me…
…I’m not in control and without a firm spot, like Archimedes I can’t move the world – let alone your heart..
…freedom of conscience does not mean being uncontrolled – we have to control ourselves and at times submit to others…
…I’m a modern mountebank – I believe in Physiognomy – after all, we are in control of our face – it’s the map of where we’ve been…
…summer softens lines that winter cruelly shows…
…You won’t age? I promise you this – your hands will go shiny and transparent and at the slightest bruise they’ll bleed…
Last night, lost in spaces between star—bays and lakes of clouds, I tossed and turned looking for you
I see you from afar—fragile and shy as a star gleaming through a cloudy rift
…don’t think love is just an emotion – I am dangerous and you know it because I will do anything you ask me to do…
…our monsters walk the dark pathways of secret motives…
your moods and colors are my climate, not the changing face of the sky
…open the access to your heart and write down what your voice is whispering…
…Mankind is not a race of noble savages – but primitive monsters hide inside us, elusive as Sasquatch…
…the secret to writing is to get your own pain – shout it out till it hurts your throat – weep it into your pillow – then write it down …
…writing with ferocity is a gift, provided that ferocity is a monomaniacal devotion to pursuing the truth …
… my early writing was a silent fury – at what or whom, I had no idea – but I shut it in until it burned my bones and now, I’ve let it out…
…I make no apology about stirring the depths – every human longs to swim under water and see what lurks beneath …
…there is a myth called objective reality – we think an impersonal world exists apart from us – it doesn’t – it needs us to be …
…I know Shakespeare said art is holding up a mirror to nature- but you’re actually bending and refracting it through your interior dialogue …
…the bones of cirrus clouds stand out like ribs against the sky – an angel is stretching…
…when you’re broken, everything gets a little honester – you make mistakes and don’t give a damn – you give up on perfection, but get real…
…Use your finger to trace the scar upon my chest- I lied – it wasn’t a knife wound, but a scrape from a nail sliding under a fence to see you…
…who would have known the dark eyes staring into mine would become our children’s eyes…?
…did you know that in your eyes there are bright flecks of green and orange – and that they are lovely?…
… the house is on fire, but go ahead – finish painting the verandah…
…we’ve let go of so many things, but never each other’s hand …
…you betrayed me, but after all those years I discover, my tears have wiped the slate clean…
…God and your heart both whisper – incline your ear – don’t just learn from your head…
…Everyone struggles to guard their heart from breaking, when they should desire to have a heart that breaks…
…it’s merely writing, but you have to adjust your ear – I speak quietly – I sob – I whisper…
…is the writer a prophet or priest – does he show the truth or serve the truth?…
…some writers closet themselves – I write wherever I am because that’s where life is happening …
…it’s good to know wave and particle alpha code, but more than that, the writer must go to the heart of life …
…if you want your own distinctive voice, you first have to become someone…
…my writing is a wild mustang – more thunderous than a lightning storm -and all my skill which I call art, is devoted to simply staying on…
…that icy glass reduces your beauty – dims your fire – let me be your mirror…
…dark furrow lines grid the snow, punctuated by orange abacus beads of pumpkins – now the crows own the field…
…these vignettes I sketch for you – what are they? watercolors ..yes and dreams blurred with tears …
…when I think of you it’s with tears, because no one else has such delicate hands that can reach into my soul and calm my fears…
…you are not what you seem – you’re a Sylph – you leave and the air retains your image – you haunt me…
fingers of wind combed the lake into ridges—icy palm prints glistened wherever it rested
…Ah, but the Moon my Love is jealous, and can you blame him? You outshine him with your virtues…
…I don’t want what other men see in you- you the you I want is invisible but it is the part of you I really love…
…a bard’s down-to-earth love: My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun; Coral is far more red and when she walks, treads on the ground…
…you called me poet-priest – I am. …devoted to my art, faithful to you…or, is the other way around?…
…what else would a poet priest do on an endless night, but write of love?…
…I guess you’re right – I am a priest – I offer sacrifices – so take this line, I want you to have something of mine…
…I’m shy in person – so afraid to confess my love – I need a go-between – our mutual friend, the Moon…
…I live with regrets – the bittersweet loss of innocence – the red track of the moon upon the lake – the inability to return and do it again…
…Neruda was right about all mysterious women – The moon lives in the lining of their skin…
…winter crescent resting in the high pine bough – you fly through the woods like a lone snow bird…
…a dream isn’t a wish – it’s an altered state of consciousness …
…I prefer rain -sometimes I feel sunlight will turn me to stone – perhaps I’m a Troll…
…I looked in the window, wanting to stay – it rained, yet I remained…because you were so lovely…
…you need to travel to see the ocean – I don’t need the ocean – I have the sky…
…I love Shakespeare, but sometimes….his images – If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head….
…I’m constantly agitated, restless – I work moments like worry beads until I see your face…
…I don’t want security – to be self-assured – I want to risk my heart in making your portrait and be paid the wages of your devotion…
I keep coming back to certain books, and you—to try to find myself again
…I pray this winter be gentle and kind – a season of rest from the wheel of the mind…
You are my winter suddenness—a glass of red wine spilt across a white tablecloth
…I hear the sounds of melting snow outside my window every night and with the first faint scent of spring, I remember life exists…
…never be disappointing – you may wound me, but you must never be disappointing…
…you listen first with the ears – then, you wait and listen for what your heart feels – then you consider what they’ve said – then, you reply …
…yes, I am your priest, your magician, your lover – I make charms to incant your presence…
…and here’s a secret for you – everything beautiful is sad…gilded with impermanence…
…God sometimes sends flowers -but I like it best when he darkens the sky and lights up an infinitude of worlds…
In the baby’s roomThe city lights areMilkyIn the curtains… Breath Gentle as rain, Sleep Quiet as snowflakes
…Myths aren’t fairy tales or legends—they’re an honest attempt to explain mysteries…
I knew I loved you when I kept trying to run away and find reasons why it wouldn’t work
…the strands that connect us are frail, so don’t hang great weights on slender wires…
…each heart is made of a different stone – no two feel alike nor break the same way …
…what is the meaning of La Belle Dame Sans Merci? – have you never been enthralled? enchantment that is unrequited desolates the soul…
…I’m the last person to ask about unrequited love – I’ve run away to the Moon and fled to its valleys…
Your window square a yellow kite, and the Moon a white balloon
…we use intimacy to refer to the physical when it really pertains to the spiritual ..
…the religion of the heart is as intimate as a wish breathed to the night sky…
From the moment I saw you, I wanted you in my dreams
…you knew I was confused, tormented, but you enticed me – led me on…
…when the room goes silent, someone has spoken with authority…
…true authority is not based on control – it’s based on truth…
…you mean you don’t fit characters into a plot? excatly…
…all these epic battles and monsters lately – but love is a tiny world and I prefer a more personal style…
… yes I speak a different language – the dark fire of poetry – it flutters and gutters in tune with the mood…
…at seventeen I tried to write poetry confining myself solely to Anglo-Saxon words – don’t know if it helped, but it made me more concrete …