When I Stop Becoming, That's When I

A Good Many Of My Poems Over The Years Have Alluded To Or Taken On The Political. Stevens Has A Line In One Of His Essays: "reality Exerts Pressure On The Imagination." Inevitably What Is Omnipresent In The Culture Exerts Its Pressure On Our Imaginations To Respond To It, Even If Indirectly. But In This Case The Backdrop Of 9/11, Coincident With The Breakup Of A Marriage, The Finding Of New Love, Some Kind Of Personal Cataclysm... All Of Those Were Forces Informing The Poems In Some Way.

I’ve Had It With All Stingy-hearted Sons Of Bitches. A Heart Is To Be Spent.

Although I Know It's Unfair, I Reveal Myself One Mask At A Time.

I've Tried To Become Someone Else For A While, Only To Discover That He, Too, Was Me.

All Good Poems Are Victories Over Something.