The poet lies and wonders rightly
At his levee camp where he sleeps nightly
"I have no home; I'm poor and cold.
Not one single poem have I ever sold.
Is it because I'm cursed with bad luck?
Or do my poems really suck?

I've thought each verse out, precise and clean
To transcribe my life in this crazy scene.
The parties, the tragedies, the dance of the young,
I've watched and recorded with amphetamine tongue.
A thousand deaths I've died for the truth,
A thousand lives lived in the fire of youth.

I wrote it all down for the old ones to read,
But, like thorns, they won't touch it--my words make them bleed.
For, with each clear-eyed glimpse of the real and the wild,
Comes a sharp pang of contempt from the secure and mild.

And plain flowers they've chosen; their colors have faded.
Their garden is whithered; their caution has made it.
To peer O'er the fence into my kaleidoscope forest
Would awaken fears in their gut
That they are the poorest.
From agony to ecstasy, I've experienced all,
While they've wasted their lives in a shopping mall."

Sleep comes easy when a conscience is clear,
So the poet drifts off and leaves a half-empty beer.