I have no talent. I write poems for myself, to think things through, that’s all.

Even a painful longing is some form of presence.

We cling to words like drowning men to straws. But still we drown, we drown.

Poetry is a presentiment of the truth.

The way a source strains toward the light, toward the air. Its laboring work, its effort, its black passageways like despair. That’s the way a poet looks for words. With muscles, gestures.

My poems are more my silence than my speech. Just as music is a kind of quiet. Sounds are needed only to unveil the various layers of silence.

This morning I suddenly catch myself: I'm not there, I'm so lost in thought, I don't know what's going on around me. Can you think yourself to death?