Let Us Have Madness

Let Us Have Madness

Kenneth Patchen

Let us have madness openly.

O men Of my generation.

Let us follow

The footsteps of this slaughtered age:

See it trail across Time's dim land

Into the closed house of eternity

With the noise that dying has,

With the face that dead things wear--

nor ever say

We wanted more;

we looked to find

An open door, an utter deed of love,

Transforming day's evil darkness;

but We found extended hell and fog Upon the earth,

and within the head

A rotting bog of lean huge graves.

Kenneth Patchen (December 13 1911 – January 8 1972) was an American poet and novelist.Though he denied any direct connection, Patchen's work and ideas regarding the role of artists paralleled those of the Dadaists and Surrealists. Patchen's ambitious body ofwork also foreshadowed literary art-forms ranging from reading poetry to jazzaccompaniment to his late experiments with visual poetry