Introduction


How do you do. I am the broken
bird hidden in a grass-filled shoebox
and gradually nursed to death by some neglected child.

I'm the crazy girl whose pet rat rides her shoulder
drinking her tears,
             and her muteness,
                         the blue of her eyes
like the color of light filling up
vacant airliners' cabins at dawn . . .
And her night dreams happier and more real
than any psychiatrist's BMW life! Which
is as it should be: it is
the only rest and dark
the only
infinitely lonely
and cruel gift that madness has to offer-. . .

I am here to learn
to bear
the beams of love,
what else

       Bells
through the leaves, I am here to endure the

bells tolling
underground

Like you a guest, a ghost

Everything will be forgotten

And either I am too alone
or I am not
alone enough
to make each moment
holy

(No one bats 1.000, friend
no one
bats .500)

And I heave heard God's silence like the sun
and sought to change

              Now
I'm just going to listen to the silence

till the Silence