I Believe Poetry Has Very Little To

If You're Going To Write About Someone's Life, You Don't Just Use Them For Wallpaper. You Have To Honor And Respect That Life.

Sometimes I'd See My Father, Walking Past My Building On His Way To Another Nowhere. I Could Have Given Him A Key, Offered A Piece Of My Floor. A Futon. A Bed. But I Never Did. If I Let Him Inside I Would Become Him, The Line Between Us Would Blur, My Own Slow-motion Car Wreck Would Speed Up. The Slogan On The Side Of A Moving Company Truck Read Together We Are Going Places--modified By A Vandal Or A Disgruntled Employee To Read Together We Are Going Down. If I Went To The Drowning Man The Drowning Man Would Pull Me Under. I Couldn't Be His Life Raft.

Water Can Be A Symbol Of Purification, To Stand Naked Before Someone A Sign Of Truth, Of Nothing To Hide. - Nick Flynn

We Got Him To Talk To A Psych Doctor Once, The Doctor Asked If He Heard Things Other People Don't. Sure, Paul Answered, I Hear Birds In The Morning When Everyone's Sleeping, I Hear Trees Rustling When No One's Around.

I Became An Electrician After High School. But I Always Had This Thing In Me To Write. But It Was Always A Little Shameful. To Say You Were A Poet Was Saying You Were Kind Of Crazy, And I Carried That Around For A Long Time. I Still Kind Of Carry That. And I Think It Might Be True, Actually.