I want to cry because I feel like it—the way children cry in the last row of seats—because I am not a man, not a poet, not a leaf,only a wounded pulse that probes the things of the other side.

Life is not a dream. Watch out! Watch out! Watch out!We fall down stairs and eat the moist earth,or we climb up to the snow's edge with the choir of dead dahlias.But there is no oblivion, no dream:raw flesh. Kisses tie mouthsin a tangle of new veinsand those who are hurt will hurt without restand those who are frightened by death will carry it on their shoulders.

It was the time of parched things,the wheat spear in the eye, the laminated cate,the time of tremendous, rusting bridgesand the deathly silence of cork.

New York is something awful, something monstrous. I like to walk the streets, lost, but I recognize that New York is the world's greatest lie. New York is Senegal with machines.

New York is a meeting place for every race in the world, but the Chinese, Armenians, Russians, and Germans remain foreigners. So does everyone except the blacks. There is no doubt but that the blacks exercise great influence in North America, and, no matter what anyone says, they are the most delicate, spiritual element in that world.