Charles Bukowski - Poetry Readings lyrics

Poetry readings have to be
Some of the saddest damned things ever
The gathering of the clansmen and clanladies
Week after week, month after month, year
After year, Getting old together
Reading on to tiny gatherings
Still hoping their genius will be
Discovered
Making tapes together, discs together
Sweating for applause
They read basically to and for each other
They can't find a New York publisher or one
Within miles, But they read on and on
In the poetry holes of America
Never daunted
Never considering the possibility that
Their talent might be
Thin, almost invisible, They read on and on
Before their mothers, their
Sisters, their husbands
Their wives, their friends, the other poets
And the handful of idiots who have wandered
In from nowhere
I am ashamed for them
I am ashamed that they have
To bolster each other
I am ashamed for their lisping egos
Their lack of guts

If these are our creators
Please, please give me something else:

A drunken plumber at a bowling alley
A prelim boy in a four rounder
A jock guiding his horse through along the
Rail, A bartender on last call
A waitress pouring me a coffee
A drunk sleeping in a deserted doorway
A dog munching a dry bone
An elephant's fart in a circus tent
A 6 pm freeway crush
The mailman telling a dirty joke

Anything anything
But these