“You take the human being and you twist it all about So scrub my skin with women Chain my tongue with whisky Stuff my nose with garlic Coat my eyes with butter Fill my ears with silver Stick my legs in plaster Tell me lies about Vietnam.”

I want to speak, to sing to total strangers. It’s my way of talking to the world.

I don’t like writing essays or theory.

There have always been poets who performed.

Blake sang his Songs of Innocence and Experience to parties of friends.

Lovers lie around in itBroken glass is found in itGrassI like that stuff.

I use the language I use to my friends. They wouldn’t believe me if I used some high-flown literary language. I want them to believe me.

I hope my poetry has a relationship with good-time rock’n roll.

Most people ignore most poetry because most poetry ignores most people.

Stadium rock and commercial rock are the opposite of what poetry needs. An audience of around 200 is ideal for poetry.

I would have walked on the waterBut I wasn’t fully insured.

And the BMA sent a writ my wayWith the very first leper I cured.

I use rock and jazz and blues rhythms because I love that music.

I was run over by the truth one day.Ever since the accident I’ve walked this way.

You put your bombers in, you put your conscience out.

Written poetry is different. Best thing is to see it in performance first, then read it. Performance is more provocative.

When I am sad and wearyWhen I think all hope has goneWhen I walk along High HolbornI think of you with nothing on

It is a voice that cuts you like a razor, but you can still hear the innocence in it, a claim to purity that soars out of the garbage of her throat, carrying evil harmonies.

If you want to recapture your youth, just cut off his allowance.

While she cut the mushrooms, she cried more than she had at the grave.

I was nineteen and I put a bowl on and I said, Cut around! Because it was not the fashion at the time when I did that hairdo – and I kept it all my life!

I’ve never really felt that I’ve had the right hair cut, or had the right clothes.

it was actually mummified, skin and all – but in a fit of space-saving zeal, they actually cut off the head and they cut off the feet and they burned the rest in a bonfire.

I thought it would be sexier if it were in-camera cuts. So I did that.

This is my life, I thought…I have excised the cancer from my past, cut it out; I have crossed the high plains, descended into the desert, traversed oceans, and planted my feet in new soil