Give Me Back The Real Ones

robert plant screaming 'bout
giving him a "bloody" woman
jim morrison howlng '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.