Not often in the story of mankind does a man arrive on earth who is both steel and velvet, who is as hard as rock and soft as drifting fog, who holds in his heart and mind the paradox of terrible storm and peace unspeakable and perfect.

Alike and ever alike, we are on all continents in the need of love, food, clothing, work, speech, worship, sleep, games, dancing, fun. From tropics to arctics humanity live with these needs so alike, so inexorably alike.

Slang is a language that rolls up its sleeves, spits on its hands and goes to work.

Poetry is a series of explanations of life, fading off into horizons too swift for explanations.

A tough will counts. So does desire.So does a rich soft wanting.Without rich wanting nothing arrives.

Poetry is a fossil rock-print of a fin and a wing, with an illegible oath between.

Here is the difference between Dante, Milton, and me. They wrote about hell and never saw the place. I wrote about Chicago after looking the town over for years and years.