the poems I write are in place of my tears. Especially, my darker moments. I take the moment and experience and channel it through a pen unto the paper exactly as it was.

I used the word 'prose' in the Trans-Siberian in the early Latin sense of prosa dictu. Poem seemed to me too pretentious, too narrow. Prose is more open, popular.

...fine love poetry tends to be written when the object of one's affection is at a safe distance; also, it often reflects a love of words more than a love of women...

There's in my mind a...turbulent moon-ridden girlor old woman, or both,dressed in opals and rags, feathersand torn taffeta,who knows strange songsbut she is not kind.

When you part from your friend, you grieve not;For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, asthe mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain.

¡Los suspiros son aire y van al aire!¡Las lágrimas son agua y van al mar!Dime, mujer, cuando el amor se olvida¿sabes tú adónde va?

The sky was like ebony and the only illumination was the harsh white light of the central streetlamp, which cast shadows so hard it seemed you might cut yourself on them.

I am filled time and againwith a heart-aching wonder when I thinkof the fireand frost of memoriesof the everlastingnessof lovethe solace of familyand the power of prayer.

Rather a thousand times the county jail than to lie under this marble figure with wings and this granite pedestal bearing the words "pro patria." What do they mean anyway?

Well, now,if little by little you stop loving meI shall stop loving you little by little.If suddenlyyou forget medo not look for me,for I shall already have forgotten you.

When from our better selves we have too longBeen parted by the hurrying world, and droop,Sick of its business, of its pleasures tired,How gracious, how benign, is Solitude

Waking At NightThe blue river is grey at morningand evening. There is twilightat dawn and dusk. I lie in the darkwondering if this quiet in me nowis a beginning or an end.

Always learn poems by heart. They have to become the marrow in your bones. Like fluoride in the water, they'll make your soul impervious to the world's soft decay.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.For nothing now can ever come to any good.

And the Spring arose on the garden fair,Like the Spirit of Love felt everywhere;And each flower and herb on Earth's dark breastRose from the dreams of its wintry rest.