Collected Poems 1947-1997

Reality is a question
of realizing how real
the world is already.

Psalm I
These psalms are the workings of the vision haunted mind and not that reason which never changes.
I am flesh and blood, but my mind is the focus of much lightning.
I change with the weather, with the state of my finances, with the work I do, with my company.
But truly none of these is accountable for the majestic flaws of mind which have left my brain open to hallucination.
All work has been an imitation of the literary cackle in my head.
This gossip is an eccentric document to be lost in a library and rediscovered when the Dove descends.
New York, February 1949

ah, Carl, while you are not safe I am not safe, and now you’re really in the total animal soup of time—