Now I'll record my secret vision, impossible sight of the face of God:
It was no dream, I lay broad waking on a fabulous couch in Harlem
having masturbated for no love, and read half naked an open book of Blake
        on my lap
Lo & behold! I was thoughtless and turned a page and gazed on the living
        Sun-flower
and heard a voice, it was Blake's, reciting in earthen measure:
the voice rose out of the page to my secret ear never heard before-
I lifted my eyes to the window, red walls of buildings flashed outside,
        endless sky sad Eternity
sunlight gazing on the world, apartments of Harlem standing in the
        universe--
each brick and cornice stained with intelligence like a vast living face--
the great brain unfolding and brooding in wilderness!--Now speaking
        aloud with Blake's voice--
Love! thou patient presence & bone of the body! Father! thy careful
        watching and waiting over my soul!
My son! My son! the endless ages have remembered me! My son! My son!
        Time howled in anguish in my ear!
My son! My son! my father wept and held me in his dead arms.

                                        
                                        1960

"They only burn themselves to reach Paradise"
                                       - Mne. Nhu

original courage is good,
motivation be ******,
and if you say they are trained
to feel no pain,
are they
guarenteed this?
is it still not possible
to die for somebody else?

you sophisticates
who lay back and
make statements of explanation,
I have seen the red rose burning
and this means more.

when Whitman wrote, "I sing the body electric"

I know what he
meant
I know what he
wanted:

to be completely alive every moment
in spite of the inevitable.

we can't cheat death but we can make it
work so hard
that when it does take
us

it will have known a victory just as
perfect as
ours.

Love is the cure,
for your pain will keep giving birth to more pain
until your eyes constantly exhale love
as effortlessly as your body yields its scent.”

I’m drenched
in the flood
which has yet to come

I’m *******
in the prison
which has yet to exist



Not having played
the game of chess
I’m already the checkmate



Not having tasted
a single cup of your wine
I’m already drunk



Not having entered
the battlefield

I’m already wounded and slain



I no longer
know the difference
between image and reality



Like the shadow
I am

And

I am not

A lover asked his beloved,
Do you love yourself more
than you love me?



The beloved replied,
I have died to myself
and I live for you.



I’ve disappeared from myself
and my attributes.
I am present only for you.



I have forgotten all my learning,
but from knowing you
I have become a scholar.



I have lost all my strength,
but from your power
I am able.



If I love myself
I love you.
If I love you
I love myself.