but I am a poet

[revolutionR]

I'm not a great poet or maybe not a good poet
but I am a poet

my life has been wrapped around poetry
and I met some poets I thought were great
and good

I use to know who were the great ones
a lot of them are gone now
I don't know who are the great ones now

it's like I could say Bob Dylan was some kind
of great poet when I was first listening to him
we don't have any Dylan in his early days now
or Leonard Cohen for that matter
as far as I know

I saw a lot of famous poets read, get up and read
and belt out their words to all with ears to listen
when it seemed that poets could rule the world
could change the world, I felt them make it move

but those days have come and gone, come and gone
which leaves me with the feeling that something
fundamental about poetry has changed
just as this world has changed

we don't live in Bukowski's world now
the world that made him the poet he was
no longer exists, he saw the world as it was
he saw the darkness that enveloped the human race
but he was also seeing some light shining in the ashtray

he saw something interesting in the human condition
the everyday reality of a down and dirty poet
just putting it down on that old clunky typewriter
with Mozart playing on the crappy radio
the lost angels falling in the background
and the lies buzzing and the birds chirping
and the drunks falling in the L.A. alley
and the whores of history standing in the rain of time
waiting for the poets to tell their story, dust and glory


but that world has come and gone, come and gone, come and