Who was that stranger beside me? Please forgive me for insisting It must have been a dream. No one could survive such happiness. —from "[Untitled]" The Lyrics records the days of one seeking knowledge through movement and contingent images—a monastery, a motel, an Irish coastal river—all the while conscious of political and class warfare, of being American, of the need to know the difference (if there is one) between good and evil. Each poem is a lament formed in a place of rest, asking: Can we get beyond this and still be? The Lyrics is the newest work of an intense and vital poet.