Don't Listen to the Bleeding Hearts

Here's a poem I wrote recently.

Don't listen to the bleeding hearts
and romantics and university students.
Art is as commonplace as a phone call to an old friend.

Artists are self-important.
It's a necessary trait
Otherwise people would see
them for what they are:
Bottom feeders.
Scum.
Liars.
Charlatans.
Sophists.

We make the effort to spin
shit into gold.
But it's still shit.
No matter how much time you spend on it.
No matter how much work and thought goes into it.
It's still shit.
But sometimes,
Sometimes the light catches it
Just right...

They're a rotten bunch.
"Tortured"
"Feeling"
"Misunderstood"
More like maladjusted.
Who isn't tortured and feeling?
Who doesn't feel misunderstood?
It's just the opposite:
They're completely understood-
Smearing colors around and 
Covering pages with lines.
Useless crybabies.
Unable to cope with the
Everyday wretchedness of humanity
And are thus forced to ram their head into the wall repeatedly
In an attempt to make it
More beautiful with their blood.

...And for one shimmering second, it's gold.