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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