Fine, I'll Do It By Myself

Rauschenberg in '53

Asked Bill De Kooning, "Please do me

A favor! I must un-create-

Give me a work to commutate!"

Erased De Kooning, scrubbed to white,

Gave the art world such a fright!

"What a flim-flam!" hollered they-

Guess who's changed their minds today.

That artist thought of something new.

Someday I'd like to do that, too.

Will you help me? Shall we try?

The others say, "Oh no, not I -

Our friends might call us bone-head fools -

We won't be flops within the rules."

But what if there's just one thing more?

Or six, or eight, or twenty-four,

That no-one's mind has thought of yet?

I'll just let everybody fret

About their hair or what Jane said - 

I'll go create something instead.