I'm Vain Enough To Think That I've

We Are Surrounded By The Absurd Excess Of The Universe. By Meaningless Bulk, Vastness Without Size, Power Without Consequence. The Stubborn Iteration That Is Present Without Being Felt. Nothing The Spirit Can Marry. Merely Phenomenon And Its Physics. An Endless, Endless Of Going On. No Habitat Where The Brain Can Recognize Itself. No Pertinence For The Heart. Helpless Duplication.

We Are All Burning In Time, But Each Is Consumed At His Own Speed.

The Heart Lies To Itself Because It Must.

The Woman Is Not Just A Pleasure, Nor Even A Problem. She Is A Meniscus That Allows The Absolute To Have A Shape, That Lets Him Skate However Briefly On The Mystery, Her Presence Luminous On The Ordinary And The Grand. Like The Odor At Night In Pittsburgh’s Empty Streets After Summer Rain On Maples And Sycamore.

I Like Ornament At The Right Time, But I Don't Want A Poem To Be Made Out Of Decoration ... When I Read The Poems That Matter To Me, It Stuns Me How Much The Presence Of The Heart-in All Its Forms-is Endlessly Available There. To Experience Ourselves In An Important Way Just Knocks Me Out. It Puzzles Me Why People Have Given That Up For Cleverness. Some Of Them Are Ingenious, More Ingenious Than I Am, But So Many Of Them Aren't Any Good At Being Alive.