"nowhere"
by Charles Bukowski

well, where are they?
the Hemingways, the T.S. Eliots, the Pounds, the
e.e. cummingses, the Jefferses, the William Carlos
Williamses?
where is Thomas Wolfe?  William
Saroyan?  Henry
Miller, Celine, Fante, Dos
Passos?
where are
they?  dead, I know
but where are the re-
placements, where are the new
others?

to me, the present gang is a bunch of
soft
fakes.

where is Carson McCullers?

where is one?
where are
any?  where are
they?

what has occurred, what has failed to
occur?

where is our Turgenev?  our
Gorky?

I don't ask for
Dostoevski, there's no replacement
for
Feodor Mikhailovich.

but
these now, what are
they:  making their tiny
splashes, what
practiced ineptness, what
boredom of
language, what a
crass bastardly trick
against print
against pages
against inhaling and
exhaling

there is
this loss of a natural and
beautiful force.

I look around and
I look
and
I say:  where are the
writers?

"I have given up..."
by Saigyō Hōshi (translated by Stephen D Carter)

I have given up
   all hope of having visitors
     in my mountain home.
If not for solitude,
how dismal my life would be!