Where Have All The Writers Gone
poem
Where have the mad ones gone?
Where are the hopeless ones?
The lonely ones?
The tortured ones?
Where are the ones I read of
living in sad fourth floor apartments
wrapped in rags of longing
married to a cup and saucer?
The ones who peer behind the curtain
scrutinizing the everyman
on the sidewalk below
stewing on the safe, ordinary life
suffocated by a neck tie?
Where are the ones
sat at desks
with eyes like owls
staring down eternity
reclined on the typewriter?
Who keeps the divine muse
locked in a worn-out valise?
Who arranges madness into prose
with a carpenter’s hammer?
Who still smokes cigarettes?
Where are the ones
with a burning hunger
that could light a cold bitter night?
The ones who reek of solitude,
soiled by desperation?
Who chase their shadow
with a fountain pen —
the mad, crazy ones
who shout ‘I’ll kill you!’
to a hall of locked doors?
Who boards in a house of rats
that gnaw away the table legs
and chew on old shoes?
The ones who sigh
under the great weight
of their unsolicited gift?
Who return the old leather shoe
to its rightful place
not before taking a small bite
for themself?
Where are these great men and women now?
Tell me, where have all the writers gone?
