The Artists' Sentence

[Kynaston Levitt]

potential edit. does this help or hurt? 

The Artists' Sentence (Potential Edit)

I am convicted —"convicted of" doesn't seem to be the right word to use, here. "Condemned to" is better. 
of knowing a Beautiful —I have read some of the other replies and noticed you haven't really had any pushback for using "beautiful" as a noun/proper noun. I will be that pushback. It doesn't work. It's amateurish and you should change it to "beauty". And anyone that tells you different doesn't have your best interests at heart. 
that pencils cannot sketch,

pigment cannot paint
and words embarrass themselves
pretending to know;—This bit's a complete mess. I would try thinking of a whole different thing that "words" either do or don't do to complete this thought.

a sacred scale 
these fat fingers 
cannot climb--—Personally, I think three lines of alliteration is too much. 

a flirtatious muse
who would never give it up
to any of us. --the last stanza is really good. 

I think when writing about such a cliché idea as inexpressible beauty one has to really do something different with it. But the old "the paint cannot paint, the words cannot say, the melody cannot hum, the paradiddle cannot drum... etc" is doing the opposite of that. If it weren't for the last stanza I would suggest binning the whole thing. Instead, I would cut it down to 4/5 lines that get the message across in the most elegant and interesting way.


I am condemned
to know a beauty—
a flirtatious muse
who never
gives up the goods