Writer's Blood

The primal angst of artistic passion - iron-tinged blood, a manuscript soaked in spilled black coffee, and an overturned tin of rolling tobacco. Stain every page—stain every song I sing, every word I say, bloody drops; Let them know your scarlet heat—let them glisten; Saturate them with yourself, all ashamed and wet; Glow upon all I have written, or shall write, bleeding drops; Let it all be seen in your light, blushing drops. – Walt Whitman Art: The Desperate Man by Gustave Courbet, 1843