Line Breaks

Apologies if this has been discussed before, but does anyone else have problems with line breaks when using the online editor? basically I don't want a big space after every return... it's ok for prose paragraphs but looks wrong for poetry. i find if i copy stuff in from other editors it looks fine but as soon as i add or remove any linebreaks it all goes to pot. is there an option to modify the html code directly? that would be easier for geeks like me