It Was As If Pain Were A

There Are Many Reasons For Violence. This Is Just Something That Sometimes Happens. We'd See It In Treatment Centers - The Child Who'd Suffered Something Awful. Even In The Best Recovery There'd Be A Fear That Everything Would Fall Apart And They'd Become Victims Again. And Their Final Loyalty Was To Themselves. They Couldn't Be Forced. They Preferred To Wreck Everything, Preferred Self-destruction To Surrender. (175)

My Poems Always Begin With A Metaphor, But My Way Into The Metaphor May Be A Word, An Image, Even A Sound. And I Rarely Know The Nature Of The Metaphor When I Begin To Write, But There Is An Attentiveness That A Writer Develops, A Sudden Alertness That Is Much Like The Feel Of A Fish Brushing Against A Hook.

Love Doesn't Need A Reason. Hate Needs A Reason.

My Wife's Dying Upstairs And I Can't Do Anything About It. I Look In Her Face And I See The Memories There. I See How I Hurt Her And How I Said The Wrong Things And How I Got Angry And How I Wasn't The Man She Hoped I'd Be. I See That In Her Face And I See She's Going To Die With That. You Think I'm Not Preoccupied?

It Was As If Pain Were A Room He Had Entered And The Door Had Been Locked Behind Him.