Dom Moraes (Domsky to his friends) is not easy to read. While his prose was limpid and lyrical, his poetry tended to be somewhat obscure as the works of many modern poets. His words have resonance but you have to read every line two or three times before you can comprehend their meaning. People brought up on simple rhyming verse like Twinkle, twinkle, little star will find Domsky’s poems obscure. However, one can detect a few themes which recur consistently. He was obsessed with death. The hawk was his symbol of doom. His mother’s insanity haunted him all his life. He sought escape from it in hard liquor and making love. He sums it up in A Letter: