The sum of the parts equals less than the whole. Or the howl. Or the how. Or the hole.

I remember when I was writing my memoir and I was worried about what other people would think when they read it, and my mother, who can be this incredibly wise person, said that it really didn't matter because strangers who read it would never meet me anyway, and people I knew were aware of my secrets.

The sum of the parts equals less than the whole. Or the howl. Or the how. Or the hole.

I think it is extremely interesting to think that, in some cases, vice might be, finally, more redemptive than virtue.

There is, in the heart, the hard-rendering profit. As if we were plucking the leaves from the trees.

Today, from the bridge, the East River is sparkling. The money is swirling around the tall buildings like tides or like tithes, And I wonder, does anyone swim in this river, I wonder, does anyone pray?

The ghosts of Rilke and Wordsworth--along with the 300+ MFA programs, which now seem to employ all Living Poets--have misled the American public egregiously into thinking that poets are morally pure and/or useless.