Perhaps this piece is a follow-up to "poem written on the fore-head of ORSON WELLES" (2004). Click here to read the transcription.
The notes for this poem were written on a five-dollar bill, in Derek's car, on the way back from a piano recital at the Chan Centre. After I got home, I tore the bill in half (to keep track of my notes), wrote the complete poem on its other side, taped it up together and gave it to Derek.
As I later told Derek (perhaps as per Atlas Shrugged, this piece of paper, with the poem on it, will continue to have an objective value long after the Canadian dollar will disappear and the English language will be forgotten (though the latter point is, perhaps, debatable). For those of you having difficulties reading my handwriting, a transcription follows. Enjoy. ;)
dries
drowning out
shouts of dissent
and manufactured
magnificence
someone forgot
to clean up
says the line
to the line
no matter
the line says
the footprints will dry
you will go home
rapt with music
or wine
forgetting
slowly forgetting everything
the snow falls
covering everything
tomorrow the birds
will sing of new alliances
new unions
new certainties
and on and on
turning the lights
off they
(who? will understand
will have new songs
and a certain degree
of resistance
Dude, I think its actually illegal to deface a legal tender note......
I know you're looking out for me, man, but don't be a party pooper. Here is what I found out from the Canadian Money Tracker website (who actually wrote to The Bank of Canada): the law is, indeed, outdated, and deals only with the defacing of coins.
In addition, there are no legal precedents with regard to the defacing of paper money, although it is, of course, officially frowned upon, because it causes the premature wearing-out of currency.
In the end, my prerogative is art, and, with all due respect, following art is a moral imperative; following the law is not. Law is only the de facto social-contract enforcement of morality, whereas morality is contained within the individual - as is art.
We do not kill because we know it is inherently wrong to kill, not because we are afraid of being punished for it; likewise, we create art in response to the intrinsic motions of the soul, not to fill a social void unoccupied by legal or cultural stigma.