A while it has been yes it has since I have Written a word upon the page in verseKeeping my pen locked up tight likeThe lips of a tortured spy pursedJust barely ready to spill the beansCanned up inside the steel casingA feast for some poor miscreant toConsume while toward the north facingLike some cod…

Father, my father, is in my blood and in my head–mother, too! Don’t forgetthe whole goddam family is in there,dwelling like blood-sucking leeches,which, on the contrary, give life witheach puckering suckering. I cannotescape myself: I am who I am, what-ever it is that I myself am in who Iam; was I ever not myself at…

They tell me. They tell me. They tell me. Shhh! Silence!What?! What do they tell me??? I cry out in desper-ation, longing for the answer to come in the midst ofdespair. Shut up! Don’t speak! They will hear you and re-quire of your mind a reckoning, until every dreadword of the dead rises up in…

Long have I considered: What is the question? What is the answer? What is life? What is death? What do these mean? In query and in quest, Long have I sought What it is that I have not Wrought— But only that which is come By breath of the wind, The breeze which winds Throughout…

Why do you write poetry? Because it’s easi- er than writing a long essay about my life philosophy. Because it gets in through the backdoor, and lets in some light through there. Because it never lets me alone until I have written down each word the muse whispers in my ear; she tells me that…

What’s it like to be white,  To be male, straight, and right— To rule the world like it’s mine Or a mine to mine all the time With the phallus in the hole, Dredging up depths dreadful, So I can have one more jewel In my crown conventional Like some pirate king of the night,…

He said, “War is never a good thing.” That was my grandfather, who had spoken to me words of the wisdom that comes from experience. He had fought in the second world war, a pawn in the game of cats and mice run by the powers that be, who ruled the roost in his day.…