The Artist's Duty

The Artists’s Duty

By Kenneth Patchen

So it is the duty of the artist to

    Discourage all traces of shame

To extend all boundaries

To fog them in right over the plate

To kill only what is ridiculous

To establish problem

To ignore solutions

To listen to no one

To omit nothing

To contradict everything

To generate the free brain

To bear no cross

To take part in no crucifixion

To tinkle a warning when mankind

    Strays

To explode upon all parties

To wound deeper than the soldier

To heal this poor obstinate monkey

     Once and for all

To verify the irrational

To exaggerate all things

To inhibit everyone

To lubricate each proportion

To experience only experience

To set a flame in the high air

To exclaim at the commonplace

     Alone

To cause the unseen eyes to open

To admire only the absurd

To be concerned with every profess

      sion save his own

To raise a fortuitous stink on the

     Boulevards of truth and beauty

To desire an electrifiable inter-

     Course with a female alligator

To lift the flesh above the suffering

To forgive the  beautiful its disconso-

     Late deceit

To flash his vengeful badge at every abyss

To HAPPEN

It is the artist’s duty to be alive

To drag people into glittering occu-

     Pations

To blush perpetually in gaping inno-

     Cence

To drift happily through the ruined

      Race-intelligence

To burrow beneath the subcon-

     Scious

To defend the unreal at the cost of

      His reason

To obey each outrageous impulse

To commit his company to all

      Enchantments.

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