All these heroes and demigods of
romantic ages now passed—they turn
to sad and bitter old men, saddled
with the knowledge that they once
somehow did these things that are
now dusty and immortalized, they
did those things, but can do them no
longer, for whatever quickened their
flesh, their minds, the beating of their
hearts in those days has been washed
away and lost forever, turning them
normal, depriving them of that wonder
that infected us all so well.
If we are bereft, if no new and mighty
piper sings at the gates to these lesser
dawns, if the bygone and its riches now
spent and squandered still ache within us,
we lesser creatures unheralded, think once
on those whose flesh once contained
the greater essence of the universal
mind, for he's a sadder animal altogether,
places hollowed out inside for that which
is fleeting, that which must fly with
some night and leave only the ephemeral
detritus that genius casts off in its wake.
1 comment:
Ken,
Indeed. I came to this one after watching an interview with Bob Dylan, just thinking about how I've heard, "there's no one come along to replace him/them," many times in the past.
I was thinking that, if we're underwhelmed by the lack of great artists or rock and roll singers, think of the guys that used to be able to shake the air and set the twilight reeling, but have slowly eroded, becoming normal. They have to look back on their days in the sun and wonder if it was really them at all.
Much of your great art comes from pain and anguish, but there's a hell of a lot of pain and anguish that yeilds nothing at all.
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