For Me, Poetry Is An Evasion Of

I Do Not Fear It: I Have Been There.

Like A Cat I Have Nine Times To Die.

Look At That Ugly Dead Mask Here And Do Not Forget It. It Is A Chalk Mask With Dead Dry Poison Behind It, Like The Death Angel. It Is What I Was This Fall, And What I Never Want To Be Again. The Pouting Disconsolate Mouth, The Flat, Bored, Numb, Expressionless Eyes: Symptoms Of The Foul Decay Within.

God, Is This All It Is, The Ricocheting Down The Corridor Of Laughter And Tears? Of Self-worship And Self-loathing? Of Glory And Disgust?

Outcast On A Cold Star, Unable To Feel Anything But An Awful Helpless Numbness. I Look Down Into The Warm, Earthy World. Into A Nest Of Lovers' Beds, Baby Cribs, Meal Tables, All The Solid Commerce Of Life In This Earth, And Feel Apart, Enclosed In A Wall Of Glass.