all the gatherings and tenderings of proclamations toward the flock had very little to do with anything

some keep trying to connect me with 

the beats 

but I was vastly unpublished in the 

50's 

and 

I very much 

disliked their vanity and 

all that 

public 

postering. 

 

and when I met most of them 

later in my life 

I still felt that most of my 

feelings toward 

them 

were the 

same. 

 

some accepted 

that; others thought that I 

should change my 

viewpoint. 

 

my viewpoint remained the 

same: writing is done 

one person 

at a time 

one place 

at a time 

 

and all the gatherings 

and tenderings of 

proclamations toward the 

flock 

had very little 

to do 

with anything. 

 

any one of those 

could have made it as a 

shoe salesman or a 

used car 

salesman 

 

and they still 

could 

instead of bitching about 

the changes of the fates and 

the ways 

 

even 

still 

now: 

 

from the sad university 

lecterns 

these hucksters of the 

despoiled word 

working the 

hand-outs 

still talking that 

dumb shit. 

 

[Charles Bukowski {1920-1994} 'The Beats', from The Best American Poetry, 2005]