The desire to be loved is the last illusion. Give it up and you will be free.

I wait. I compose myself. My self is a thing I must now compose, as one composes a speech. What I must present is a made thing, not something born.

I stand on the corner, pretending I am a tree.

The heart with letters on it shining like a light bulb through the trim hole painted in the chest, art history.

Happy as a clam, is what my mother says for happy. I am happy as a clam: hard-shelled, firmly closed.

Choice of evils debates always produce extremism - people choose what they hope is the lesser evil, then call it good and demonize the other choice. It will be a challenge for your generation to synthesize - to move beyond Us versus Them, to We.

poetry is where the language is renewed.