I Had Been Warned About Jews By

I Knew About Holiness, Never Having Missed A Sunday-school Class Since I Started At Four Years. But If Jews Were Also Religious, How Could Our Neighbor With The Grease-grimy Shirt Use The Word 'damn' About Them?

Verse Is Not Written, It Is Bled; Out Of The Poet's Abstract Head. Words Drip The Poem On The Page; Out Of His Grief, Delight And Rage.

Writing Is Like This -- You Dredge For The Poem's Meaning The Way Police Dredge For A Body. They Think It Is Down There Under The Black Water, They Work The Grappling Hooks Back And Forth.

Without Vision You Don't See, And Without Practicality The Bills Don't Get Paid.

The Years Rolled Their Brutal Course Down The Hill Of Time. Still Poor, My Clothes Still Smelling Of The Horse Barn, Still Writing Those Doubtful Poems Where Too Much Emotion Clashed With Too Many Words.