The exquisite pain of a poet's existence is something ordinary people just can't fully grasp or appreciate, try though they might. It's a lonely life, but not without its rewards.

For instance, it's a lot more fun than mime...

The guy I knew wrote and performed a whole series of poems and plays about his own death. It was a subject that fascinated him, along with the sense of his Christ-like crucifixion by an idiotic society that doesn't care.

I met him years later, though, and he was still alive. Things seldom work out as neatly as we envisioned them in the passion of youth.