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