Hemingway's brains dropping into
the orange juice;
Pascal cutting his wrists
in the bathtub;
Artaud locked up with the mad;
Dostoevsky stood up against a wall;
Crane jumping into a boat propeller;
Lorca shot in the road by Spanish
troops;
Berryman jumping off a bridge;
Burroughs shooting his wife;
Mailer knifing his.
-that's what they want:
A God damned show
a lit billboard
in the middle of hell.
that's what they want,
that bunch of
dull
Bukowski is fighting the notion that to become accepted by the norm an artist as to be tortured or suffer in any way to add to his romantic appeal.
What they want