Sometimes nothing is so solid to me as writing - I suppose that's what a vocation means - at times a torment, a bad conscience, but all in all, purpose and direction.

Their monument sticks like a fishbone in the city's throat.

September twenty-second, Sir, the bough cracks with unpicked apples, and at dawn the small-mouth bass breaks water, gorged with spawn.

Everywhere, giant finned cars nose forward like fish; a savage servility slides by on grease.

In the end, every hypochondriac is his own prophet.

I want to apologize for plaguing you with so many telephone calls last November and December. When the 'enthusiasm' is coming on me it is accompanied by a feverish reaching out to my friends. After its over I wince and wither.

We feel the machine slipping from our hands As if someone else were steering; If we see light at the end of the tunnel, It's the light of the oncoming train.