Your mother carried you Out of the smoking ruins of a buil… And set you down on this sidewalk Like a doll bundled in burnt rags, Where you now stood years later

The night still frightens you. You know it is interminable And of vast, unimaginable dimensio… “That’s because His insomnia is p… You’ve read some mystic say.

It seemed the kind of life we want… Wild strawberries and cream in the… Sunlight in every room. The two of us walking by the sea n… Some evenings, however, we found o…

The mail truck goes down the coast Carrying a single letter. At the end of a long pier The bored seagull lifts a leg now… And forgets to put it down.

A New Version: 1980 What is that little black thing I… in the white? Walt Whitman One

Seems like a long time Since the waiter took my order. Grimy little luncheonette, The snow falling outside. Seems like it has grown darker

And the one that’s got it in for y… Mister, that keeps taunting you In an old man’s morning wheeze Every time you so much as glance a… Or blurt something in your defense…

The mad and homeless take shelter Against the cold weather In tombs of the fabulously rich, Where they huddle in their rags And make themselves scarce only

The obvious is difficult To prove. Many prefer The hidden. I did, too. I listened to the trees. They had a secret

This last continent Still to be discovered. My hand is dreaming, is building Its ship. For crew it takes A pack of bones, for food

St. John of the Cross wore dark g… As he passed me on the street. St. Theresa of Avila, beautiful a… Turned her back on me. “Soulmate,” they hissed. “It’s hi…

Boss of all bosses of the universe… Mr. know-it-all, wheeler-dealer, w… And whatever else you’re good at. Go ahead, shuffle your zeros tonig… Dip in ink the comets’ tails.

Executioner happy to explain How his wristwatch works As he shadows me on the street. I call him that because he is grim… And wears black.

On the first page of my dreambook It’s always evening In an occupied country. Hour before the curfew. A small provincial city.

Where it says snow read teeth-marks of a virgin Where it says knife read you passed through my bones like a police-whistle