Charles Bukowski - A sickness? lyrics

Yes, I'm a Romantic, overly sentimental
Something of a hero worshiper, And I do
Not apologize for this
Instead, I revere Hemingway
At the end of his endurance, Sticking the
Barrel of the gun into his trembling mouth
And I think
Of Van Gogh slicing off part of his ear
For a whore and then blasting
Himself away in the cornfield
Then there was Chatterton drinking rat
Poison (an extremely painful way to die
Even if you are a plagiarist)
And Ezra Pound dragged through
The dusty streets of Italy in a cage
And later confined to a madhouse
Celine robbed, hooted at, tormented by
The French
Fitzgerald who finally quit drinking
Only to drop dead soon thereafter
Mozart in a pauper's grave beethoven deaf


Bierce vanishing into the
Wastelands of Mexico
Hart Crane leaping over the ship's rail and
Into the propeller
Tolstoy accepting Christ and giving all his
Possessions the poor
T lautrec with his short, deformed
Body and perfectly developed
Spirit, Drawing everything he
Saw and more
DH lawrence dying of TB
And preparing his own ship of death
While writing his last
Great poems li Po
Setting his poems on fire
And sailing them down the river
Sherwood Anderson dying of peritonitis
After swallowing a toothpick
(he was at a party driking
Martinis when
The olive went in, Toothpick and
All) socrates drinking
Hemlock with a smile
Nietzsche gone mad
De Quincey addicted to opium
Dostoevski standing blindfolded before a
Firing squad hamsun eating his own
Flesh harry Crosby commiting
Suicide hand in hand with his whore
Tchaikovsky trying to
Evade his homosexuality by marrying a female
Opera star henry Miller, in his old
Age, obsessed with young Oriental
Girls john Dos Passos going
From fervent left-winger
To ultraconservative republican
Aldous Huxley taking visionary
Drugs and reaping imaginary riches
Brahms in his youth, Working on ways
To build a powerful body
Because he felt that the mind was not enough
Villon barred from Paris, Not for his ideas
But rather because he was a thief
Thomas Wolfe who felt he couldn't
Go home again until
He was famous
And Faulkner: When he got his morning mail
He'd hold the envelope up to the light
And if couldn't see a check in there
He'd throw it away
William Burroughs who shot and killed his
Wife (he missed the apple
On her head)
Norman Mailer knifing his wife no apple
Involved salinger not believing
The world was worth writing for:
Jean Julius Christian Sibelius
A proud and beautiful man
Composer of powerful music
Who after his 40th year
Went into hiding and was seldom seen
Again nobody is sure who
Shakespeare was
Nightlife killed Truman capote
Allen Ginsberg becoming a college
Professor william Saroyan marrying the
Same woman twice (but
By then he wasn't going anywhere
Anyhow) john Fante being sliced away
Bit by bit by the surgeon's knife
Before my very eyes
Robinson Jeffers
(the proudest poet of them all) writing
Begging letters to those in power
Of course there's more to tell
And I could go on and on
But even I (the Romantic)
Begin to tire

Still these men and women past and present-
Have created and are creating new worlds for
The rest of us
Despite the fire and despite the ice
Despite the hostility of governments
Despite the ingrown distrust of the masses
Only to die singly
And usually alone

You've got to admire them all
For the courage, For the effort
For their best and at their worst
Some gang! They are the source of light!
They are a source of joy!

All of them heroes you can be grateful for
And admire from afar as you wake up
From your ordinary dreams each morning