Where Are The Real Ones?

robert plant screaming 'bout

giving him a "bloody" woman

jim morrison howling 'bout

strangers and death

john lennon singing 'bout

revolution and drugs and peace

mick jagger sympathizing with the devil

and 'they' called it "pop-culture".

jimi hendrix breaking past the limit

of electric guitars with love

eric clapton getting high on cocaine

and writing about unrequited love

ziggy stardust tryin' to stay hunky-dory

with the spiders on mars and aladdin

bob dylan writing about war and violence

and stones and rain and doves

and 'they' called it "music".

bukowski drinking his life away

hanging on to his typewriter and radio

nabokov talking about incest and chess

marquez writing about solitude and magic

mishima confessing his lust for men

and 'they' called it "literature".

"art is the human desposition of

sensible matter for an aesthetic end"

joyce once said. I believe these folks

did justice to that somehow, but when

you see the kind of shit that sells nowadays

and gets called "riveting", "masterly", or "eye-opening"

how the fuck does an artist

not shoot their self

on the spot is an enigma to me.