Untitled - The Chinati Foundation

RO B E R T C R E E L E Y
for john chamberl ain
They paid my way here
and I’ll get myself home.
Old saying:
Let the good times roll .
…
This is Austin
spelled with an H? This is
Houston, Texas—
Houston Street is back there—
ways in and out
of New York. The billboards
are better than the natural view,
you dig. I came here
just to see you, personal
as God and just as real.
I may never go home
again. Meantime
the lead room with the x
number of people
under the street
is probably empty tonight.
In New York, in
some other place.
Many forms.
Many farms, ranches
in Texas—many places,
many miles, big
endless spaces they say.
This is Marlboro Country
with box those dimensions,
module. Old movie of you
using baler with the crunchers
coming down so delicately.
The kids in the loft, long space.
The Oldenburgs going to work,
eight o’clock. Viva
talking and talking. Now I’m
stoned again, I was
stoned again, all that
past, years
also insistent dimension.
If I could take the world,
and put it on its side, man,
and squeeze just in the right
places. Wow. I don’t think
much of interest would happen.
Like the lion coming into the room
with two heads, we’d all end up
killing it to see it.
So this is Art and here we are.
Who would have thought it?
I’ll go sooner than you.
I can always tell
no matter how long I sit
after they’ve all gone, but the bottle
isn’t empty.
No one’s going to throw me out.
Let’s sit in a bar and cry again.
Fuck it! Let’s go out on your boat
and I’ll fall asleep just like
they all do you tell me.
Terri�c. Water’s
an obvious material.
You could even make
a suit out of it. You could
do anything you wanted to,
possibly, if you wanted to.
Like coming through customs
with the grey leather hat.
It’s all so serious and wonderful.
It’s all so big and small.
Upended, it begins again, all the way
from the end to the very beginning,
again. I want it two ways,
she said, in a book
someone wrote. I want it all.
I want to take it all home.
But there’s too much already
of everything, and something
I have to let go
and that’s me, here and now.
But before leaving, may I say
that you are a great artist
whatever that turns out to be,
and art is art because of you.