Now You Know

Now you
know what it is like
to profess to
be a literary man

They're all dead
smoked themselves
to death
took their own lives

Lived hard without
rules and paid the price
of literature
lived the dream

Now you know
what it is like to live
like this in a world
that doesn't give a shit

Now you know
that literature is second
to the popular culture
that these poets died

Lived their lives elsewhere
and turned to motes
gave it their all
turned mean

Inward where living
roughed them up like children
playing in a field
of illusion

Where nothing
not even a settling sun
could save them from the
choice of their reason


TS