Art and Poison

[TheDeceased]

Jackson Pollock was an alcoholic whereas Elvis Presley preferred a medley of booze and pills and junk. Vincent Van Gogh had a healthy glow while Louis Armstrong used his bong to smoke up all his skunk. Richard Pryor was getting higher than the Grateful Dead. Aldous Huxley was on LSD and Cobain got shot in the head. Johnny Cash, he skipped past the hash and opted for hammer instead.

William Burroughs tied off with a hose while Jean-Paul Sartre put speed up his nose to fuel philosophical prose. River Phoenix liked smoking glass dicks and riding around on his horse. Stevie Nicks was turning tricks to pay for coke intercourse. Salvidor Dali was arrested in Bali for smuggling hash in his pants. My Own Private Idaho, basically a bio for writer/director Van Sant. Sigmund Freud, he filled the void with a prescription for blow.

And chasing a dragon, way off the wagon, there sat the Raven and Poe.

 

[New]

I really do enjoy this as the prose poem it is, as well as the subject matter you've highlighted. Sometimes I get the idea that intentionally torturing myself would lead me out of my writer's block.

 

[TheDeceased]

When my wife left me, it wasn't like a normal divorce. She was institutionalized. Her parents came from halfway across the world and judged me. Everyone treated me like I was the reason she went crazy. During the months following those events, I was exploding with creativity. Now it is gone. I am convinced that pain causes inspiration. Most of the great novels have been written by the truly depressed, because if you look at things how they really are, it's difficult to not be depressed isn't it? When I was in pain, I loved it, I bathed in the pain. And I said, whenever I run out of ammunition, I'm going to recreate it. I'm going to inflict it upon myself. But now that inspiration has gone, I can't. I want to, but I can't. Drugs aren't enough. You need drugs and serious pain, and, I guess, the ability to deal with it - to some extent. I feel like I can't deal with it anymore. I wish someone would inflict it on me to prove me wrong.

Leonardo Da Vinci should be included in the list, but it was extraordinarily difficult to think up something that rhymed with Vinci in the state I was in.

Maybe if I staple gunned myself in the balls...



Thanks for the feedback. I was hoping someone appreciated this Beastie Boys/ Monty Python inspired ridiculouness.

 

[New]

Oh, totally. I've never been married, but the pain of watching love deteriorate was definitely my most recent muse. Now that I've made friends with her along with my life generally taking an upswing, nothing comes out. You read most of my work, you can see the despair and unachievable desire bleeding through, and there are some days where I wish my heart was broken all over again just so that I can engage in my art.

Maybe if I was a sword swallower with haemophilia...

Oh yeah..."Leo Da Vinci/Necromancy"