I make it clear why I write as I do and why other poets write as they do. After hundreds of experiments I decided to go my own way in style and see what would happen.

Poetry is a phantom script telling how rainbows are made and why they go away.

I glory in this world of men and women, torn with troubles, yet living on to love and laugh through it all.

Enough small empty boxes thrown into a big empty box fill it full.

Ordering a man to write a poem is like commanding a pregnant woman to give birth to a red-headed child.

Lips half-willing in a doorway. Lips half-singing at a window. Eyes half-dreaming in the walls. Feet half-dancing in a kitchen. Even the clocks half-yawn the hours And the farmers make half-answers.

Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo. Shovel them under and let me work. I am the grass. I cover all.