Please may I go out
Peter Hooper (conté crayon, b.l.); Colin McCahon sept 25 / '69 (conté crayon, b.r.)
Please may I go out / I'm not a bum / I've got a bank account / but I couldn't go / on any longer / making money / teaching lies
I need to find / a new kind of truth / or maybe only / a very old truth / or just look at things / that mightn't be here / tomorrow
I've stepped off / an island / I'm afloat
Do you know / any direction / worth sailing?
2001 He Kupu Noatu: Paintings by Colin McCahon
Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki
Auckland
2/5/2001 - 19/8/2001
The text is from Peter Hooper's poem 'Please may I go out', from Journey towards an elegy and other poems (Nag's Head Press, Christchurch, 1969).