A Man Who Wants To Mutilate Himself

Je Est Un Autre. (i Is Someone Else).

To Whom Shall I Hire Myself Out? What Beast Should I Adore? What Holy Image Is Attacked? What Hearts Shall I Break? What Lies Shall I Uphold? In What Blood Tread?

No One's Serious At Seventeen.

I'm Now Making Myself As Scummy As I Can. Why? I Want To Be A Poet, And I'm Working At Turning Myself Into A Seer. You Won't Understand Any Of This, And I'm Almost Incapable Of Explaining It To You. The Idea Is To Reach The Unknown By The Derangement Of All The Senses. It Involves Enormous Suffering, But One Must Be Strong And Be A Born Poet. It's Really Not My Fault.

For A Long Time I Found The Celebrities Of Modern Painting And Poetry Ridiculous. I Loved Absurd Pictures, Fanlights, Stage Scenery, Mountebanks Backcloths, Inn-signs, Cheap Colored Prints; Unfashionable Literature, Church Latin, Pornographic Books Badly Spelt, Grandmothers Novels, Fairy Stories, Little Books For Children, Old Operas, Empty Refrains, Simple Rhythms.