A Bucket of Blood

[first lines]

Maxwell H. Brock: I will talk to you of Art, for there is nothing else to talk about, for there is nothing else. Life is an obscure hobo bumming a ride on the omnibus of Art. Burn gas buggies, and whip your sour cream of circumstance and hope, and go ahead and sleep your bloody heads off. Creation is, all else is not. What is not creation, is graham crackers; let it all crumble to feed the creator. The Artist is, all others are not. A canvas is a canvas or a painting. A rock is a rock or a statue. A sound is a sound or is music. A preacher is a preacher, or an Artist. Where are John, Joe, Jake, Jim, jerk? Dead, dead, dead They were not born before they were born, they were not born. Where are Leonardo, Rembrandt, Ludwig? Alive! Alive! Alive! They were born! Bring on the multitude, the multitude of fishes: feed them with the fishes for liver oil to nourish the Artist, stretch their skin upon an easel to give him canvas, crush their bones into a paste that he might mold them. Let them die, and by their miserable deaths become the clay within his hands that he might form an ashtray or an ark. For all that is comes through the eye of the Artist. The rest are blind fish, swimming in the cave of aloneness. Swim on you maudlin, muddling, maddened fools, and dream that one bright and sunny night, some Artist will bait a hook and let you bite upon it! Bite hard - and die! In his stomach you are very close to immortality.