Persist or Destroy

Today I'm posting an older poem. When I was nineteen, an artist named Roebuck made the news because he got depressed. Distressed over financial troubles, he stole into the gallery with a can of black paint and sprayed big X’s over his paintings. Sometime later, a journalist captured the frowning artist posed in front of his newly X'd pictures; I clipped it out of the local paper. Suddenly everyone had to have an X’d Roebuck. He was now forced to ask himself, ‘should I make more X’d out paintings?’ The sadness of being ignored was eclipsed by a more insidious anonymity, like falling into a deeper circle of Hell. For if the vampires who bought his X’d paintings were buying a man’s despair, no one would want a faked despair, yet the dilemma Roebuck found himself in could not fail but to leave him in a more profound anonymity than what he began with, hence a deeper despair. I thought about Roebuck when I formed the words persist or destroy, which became my credo. Deciding to live is not enough. The world is full of people who, in Thoreau’s words, “live a life of quiet desperation,” people whose lives live them. No, in deciding to live, one must persist in seeking out the best in one’s self and the world. Anything less is not worth the while, one may as well call it quits. Roebuck brought his Hell upon himself, I thought, because he merely X’d his paintings out. It seemed to me he was saying, 'look at poor me.' He should have ripped them from the walls and burned them, then started over. Persist or destroy also means: sometimes in order to create you must destroy. That’s what I hoped I would have the courage to do.

After writing about Roebuck and what his story meant to me, I crossed most of the words out. That is what you see in the photo above; it is a page from a sketchbook I kept at that time. And below is a digital transcription of the poem I made back then after further excisions.

Persist or Destroy

Roebuck    a parable    aware of the photographer    pose    pictures    hung so nice    clean X’s    well sprayed    anger?    at one    idea    destroy one    so strongly    the pictures    fun    art new    important    weed    ritual    creating making art    volved in    up    recognize inherent quality which is bound to    conduct    this society    know?    meaningful    world    Well as for me now    a modern artist     but now I am only able    some of my ideas could probably    feel like    one minute    may be    the next    fact is    I am my ideas    good are they    to me now?    An artist    depressed    troubles and    black paint    now says he sees    a sign of national sickness    for all these years    love    hate    artist    intellectual    X    strangeness    reason    a small    but

a crossed out painting    act of anger    slashed out    creator    this violent act    his own creation    X’d result    evidence of the act  —————————————

he really wanted to destroy his work    burning    ideas and attitudes    what’s important    communicate    act of violence    idea xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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consciously and deliberately it’s really impossible to tell     only want more than anything to make     work     certain     honest     picture     slash     enough to act     go all the way     annihilate     completely     every trace     abandon     at least     doubt     mean     not look     at it     Nothing     get rid of the ashes     child     coward     stupid act     hell     wrought upon himself     people going nuts     horror of horrors—he might occasionally see one     paint or not paint—persist or destroy     national sickness—what of his own sickness?     be harsh     after all     it would be nice     to talk     to see     his pictures     without the X’s

The first  micro-fiction I posted, The Real Thing, is based on the parable of Roebuck. Interestingly, I've just watched Schnabel's film Basquiat as well as the Tamra Davis documentary on Basquiat and I see intriguing parallels. Basquiat's work sold from the start, but also from the start an immense hype machine attached itself to him, bringing with it ethically questionable zones of attention toward his work and person. 

I'm linking this poem to dVerse OLN