The characteristic paranoias of youth — the attribution of intention and duplicity to almost all human behavior. The young suffer terribly from the b… - Kenneth Rexroth

We have slept together in
A lonely bed. Now my heart
Turns towards you, awake at last,
Penitent, lost in the last
Loneliness. Speak to me. Talk
To me. Break the black silence.
Speak of a tree full of leaves,
Of a flying bird, the new
Moon in the sunset, a poem,
A book, a person - all the
Casual healing speech
Of your resonant, quiet voice. — Kenneth Rexroth, from “Loneliness,” The Collected Shorter Poems of Kenneth Rexroth, (New Directions January 17, 1966)

O heart, heart, so singularly
Intransigent and corruptible,
Here we lie entranced by the starlit water,
And moments that should each last forever

Slide unconsciously by us like water. — Kenneth Rexroth, from “Another Spring,” One Hundred Poems from the Chinese. (New Directions January 17, 1971) Originally published 1956.

Late at night the horses stumble
Around the camp and I awake.
I lie on my elbow watching
Your beautiful sleeping face
Like a jewel in the moonlight.
If you are lucky and the
Nations let you, you will live
Far into the twenty-first
Century. I pick up the glass
And watch the Great Nebula
Of Andromeda swim like
A phosphorescent amoeba
Slowly around the Pole. Far
Away in distant cities
Fat-hearted men are planning
To murder you while you sleep.