If You Start With A Bang, You

The River Itself Has No Beginning Or End. In Its Beginning, It Is Not Yet The River; In The End It Is No Longer The River. What We Call The Headwaters Is Only A Selection From Among The Innumerable Sources Which Flow Together To Compose It. At What Point In Its Course Does The Mississippi Become What The Mississippi Means?

Till Human Voices Wake Us, And We Drown.

The Immature Poet Imitates, The Mature Poet Plagiarizes.

Now That Lilacs Are In Bloom She Has A Bowl Of Lilacs In Her Room And Twists One In Her Fingers While She Talks. "ah, My Friend, You Do Not Know, You Do Not Know What Life Is, You Who Hold It In Your Hands"; (slowly Twisting The Lilac Stalks) "you Let It Flow From You, You Let It Flow, And Youth Is Cruel, And Has No Remorse And Smiles At Situations Which It Cannot See." I Smile, Of Course, And Go On Drinking Tea.

Trying To Use Words, And Every Attempt Is A Wholly New Start, And A Different Kind Of Failure Because One Has Only Learnt To Get The Better Of Words For The Thing One No Longer Has To Say, Or The Way In Which One Is No Longer Disposed To Say It. And So Each Venture Is A New Beginning, A Raid On The Inarticulate With Shabby Equipment Always Deteriorating In The General Mess Of Imprecision Of Feeling.