The only magazine Auden subscribed to was Scientific American, a publication I had previously scorned as the trade journal of pre-med students and Nobel Prize winners.

“I come from a long line of Toad Kings,” Huckleberry said, “and we never back down from a bet.”Phyllis, a great white heron, lowered her long white neck so she could get a better look into her friend's golden eyes.“I just think you…

“Madras shorts with those candy-ass Brooks Brothers shirts? If you wear stripes with plaids, you’ll look like a TV test pattern.”

No harp now hails, / no wood sings mirth, no good hawk / swoops through the hall, no swift steed / paws dirt in the castle-yard. Woeful death / has emptied earth of an ancient race.

Bite an apple and watch them come, God only knows wherefrom.

The irony is that Smart's work of self-abnegation has surpassed that of her erotic master; George Barker is largely forgotten now, while the reputation of Smart's one work of genius seems secure.

no matter where we sit or how we stare— / all parades now march away to one day.

my heartis a brokenstandpipefanningcity water cayenneacross sidewalksgutters ripple redover fast food bagsand cigarette buttsover the feetof priests and pit bullsover the handsof drunksand babiesand into the mouthsof ratsand raconteurs you never oughtadrink…

living in the cross current lawn-care worlds don't give a whit about the so called deeper things. They don't have to scrape and you can't make them go to the river to see a sunset. They've got all their bonafide luxuries in a smart little…

The next/ may be the lucky one,/ undiscovered all these years.

I didn't much care for the graveyard anymore now that so many people I knew where layin' in it.

The space they are in is years long.

I was right to fear the God of my father He is a monster.

Once a psychologist told me a story

peripheral dreams fall out from the head / the body squirms then burrows abed: / “have you had a good life? you now have less! / —led a hard life instead? you soon will be gone!”