Mason Williams

Mason Williams is (in my opinion) one of the great writers of the 20th century. Born in 1938 in Abilene, Texas, Williams wrote for the Smothers Brothers show and also was a virtuostic classical guitarist. His poetry transcends all of this in his mastery of the english language. Here's some stuff:

"Soon you begin to realize that 'I don't want to' is the world's greatest reason."

"That day she dove into the pool, and I envied the water's ability to touch her totally."

DAWNSEA
In the early morning moonlight
I cast my net into the dark horizon
And the dawn
Like the gleaming belly of a surfacing fish
Leapt from the sea

THE CENSOR
The Censor sits
Somewhere between
The scenes to be seen
And the television sets
With his scissor purpose poised
Watching the human stuff
That will sizzle through
The magic wires
And light up
Like welding shops
The ho-hum rooms of America
And with a kindergarten
Arts and crafts concept
Of moral responsibility
Snips out
The rough talk
The unpopular opinion
Or anything with teeth
And renders
A pattern of ideas
Full of holes...
A doily
For your mind

In addition to his Emmy and Grammy Award winning compositions, Williams dabbled in conceptual art. In the late 1960s Mason produced a work titled Bus, a life-sized (11'x37'), photographic poster of a Greyhound Bus. It's included in the permanent collection of New York's Museum of Modern Art. He also created an aerial sunflower: for a short film, he had an biplane skywrite the stem and leaves of a sunflower in the sky beneath the sun, the sun itself became the blossoming flower to viewers on the ground at the appropriate angle).

Source: http://www.masonwilliams-online.com/