If you can afford a psychiatrist, 1969

If you can afford a psychiatrist

'Try having a bonfire' / Peter Hooper (conté crayon, b.l.); Colin McCahon / Aug 26 '69 (conté crayon, b.r.)

If you can afford
a psychiatrist
if you're suffocated
with plush
stuffed with money
worries and responsibilities
try being poor
not that it
will cure you
but at least
as a new way of dying
you won't find it
lonely

Plush
money
worries
responsibilities

A new way of dying.

1969 Written paintings and drawings: Colin McCahon
Barry Lett Galleries
Auckland
6/10/1969 - 17/10/1969

The text is from Peter Hooper's poem 'Try having a bonfire', from Journey towards an elegy and other poems (Nag's Head Press, Christchurch, 1969).