There is no escape.
You can’t be a vagabond and an artist
and still be a solid citizen, a wholesome, upstanding man.
You want to get drunk, so you have to accept the hangover.
You say yes to the sunlight and pure fantasies, so you
have to say yes to the filth and the nausea.
Everything is within you, gold and mud,
happiness and pain, the laughter
of childhood and the
apprehension
of death.
Say yes
to everything, shirk
nothing. Don’t try to lie to yourself.
You are not a solid citizen. You are not a Greek.
You are not harmonious, or the master of yourself.
You are a bird in the storm. Let
it storm! Let it drive
you!