Blue (1993)

1. You say to the boy, "Open your eyes"

2. When he opens his eyes and sees the light

3. You make him cry out, saying

4. O Blue, come forth

5. O Blue, arise

6. O Blue, ascend

7. O Blue, come in

8. I'm sitting with some friends in this cafe, drinking coffee,

9. served by young refugees from Bosnia.

10. The war rages across the newspapers and through the ruined streets of Sarajevo.

11. Tania said, "Your clothes are on back to front and inside out."

12. Since there were only two of us here, I took them off and put them right, then and there.

13. I'm always here before the doors open.

14. What need of so much news from abroad

15. while all that concerns either life or death

16. is all transacting and at work within me?

17. I step off the kerb and a cyclist nearly knocks me down.

18. - (Man) Open your fucking eyes!

19. Flying in from the dark, he nearly parted my hair.

20. I step into a blue funk.

21. The doctor in St Bartholomew's Hospital thought he could detect lesions in my retina,

22. the pupils dilated with belladonna.

23. The torch shone into them with a terrible blinding light.

24. Look left Look down

25. Look up Look right

26. Blue flashes in my eyes

27. Blue Bottle buzzing

28. Lazy days

29. The sky-blue butterfly sways on a cornflower

30. Lost in the warmth of the blue heat haze

31. Singing the blues

32. Quiet and slowly

33. Blue of my heart

34. Blue of my dreams

35. Slow blue love of delphinium days

36. What shall I do now?

37. Blue is the universal love in which man bathes.

38. It is the terrestrial paradise.

39. Blue.

40. I'm walking along the beach in a howling gale.

41. Another year is passing.

42. In the roaring waters, I hear the voices of dead friends.

43. Love is life that lasts forever.

44. My heart's memory turns to you.

45. David.

46. Howard.

47. Graham.

48. Terry.

49. Paul.

50. David.

51. Howard.

52. Graham.

53. Terry.

54. Paul.

55. David.

56. Howard.

57. Graham.

58. Terry.

59. Paul.

60. But what if this present were the world's last night?

61. In the setting sun, your love fades.

62. Dies in the moonlight, fails to rise.

63. Thrice denied by cock crow.

64. In the dawn's first light.

65. Look down Look left

66. Look up Look right

67. The camera flash, atomic bright

68. Photos the CNN

69. A green moon

70. And the world turns magenta

71. My retina is a distant planet

72. A red Mars from a Boy's Own comic

73. With yellow infection Bubbling at the corner

74. I said, "This looks like a planet"

75. The doctor says, "Oh, I think it looks like a pizza"

76. The worst of the illness is the uncertainty.

77. I've played this scenario back and forth

78. each hour of the day for the last six years.

79. Blue transcends the solemn geography of human limits.

80. I am home with the blinds drawn

81. H.B. is back from Newcastle

82. But gone out

83. The washing machine is roaring away

84. And the fridge is defrosting

85. These are his favourite sounds

86. I've been given the option of being an in-patient at the hospital

87. or coming in twice a day to be hooked to a drip.

88. My vision will never come back.

89. The retina is destroyed.

90. Though when the bleeding stops, what is left of my sight might improve.

91. I have to come to terms with sightlessness.

92. If I lose half my sight,

93. will my vision be halved?

94. The virus rages fierce.

95. I have no friends now who are not dead or dying.

96. Like a blue frost, it caught them.

97. At work, at the cinema,

98. on marches and beaches.

99. In churches on their knees.

100. Running, flying,

101. silent or shouting protest.

102. It started with sweats in the night and swollen glands.

103. Then the black cancer spread across their faces.

104. As they fought for breath, TB and pneumonia hammered at the lungs,

105. and Toxo at the brain.

106. Reflexes scrambled.

107. Sweat poured through hair matted like lianas in the tropical forest.

108. Voices slurred,

109. and then were lost forever.

110. My pen chased this story across the page,

111. tossed this way and that in the storm.

112. (Man) Jesus Christ!

113. The blood of sensibility is blue.

114. I consecrate myself to find its most perfect expression.

115. My sight failed a little more in the night.

116. H.B. offers me his blood.

117. "It'll kill everything," he says.

118. The drip of DHPG Trills like a canary.

119. I am accompanied by a shadow into which H.B. appears and disappears.

120. I've lost the sight on the periphery of my right eye.

121. I hold out my hands before me and slowly part them.

122. At a certain moment, they disappear out of the comer of my eyes.

123. This is how I used to see.

124. Now if I repeat the motion, this is all I see.

125. I shall not win the battle against the virus,

126. in spite of the slogans like "Living with AIDS".

127. The virus was appropriated by the well,

128. so we have to live with AIDS

129. while they spread the quilt for the moths of Ithaca across the wine dark sea.

130. Awareness is heightened by this, but something else is lost.

131. A sense of reality drowned in theatre.

132. Thinking blind, becoming blind.

133. In the hospital, it is as quiet as a tomb.

134. The nurse fights to find a vein in my right arm.

135. We give up after five attempts.

136. Would you faint if someone stuck a needle into your arm?

137. I've got used to it,

138. but I still shut my eyes.

139. The Gautama Buddha instructs me to walk away from illness.

140. But he wasn't attached to a drip.

141. Fate is the strongest.

142. Fate.

143. Fated.

144. Fatal.

145. I resign myself to Fate.

146. Blind Fate.

147. The drip stings.

148. A lump swells up in my arm.

149. Out comes the drip.

150. An electric shock sparks up my arm.

151. How can I walk away with a drip attached to me?

152. How am I going to walk away from this?

153. I fill this room with the echo of many voices who passed time here.

154. Voices unlocked from the blue of the long-dried paint.

155. The sun comes and floods this empty room.

156. I call it my room.

157. My room.

158. My room has welcomed many summers,

159. embraced laughter and tears.

160. Can it fill itself with your laughter?

161. Each word a sunbeam, glancing in the light.

162. This is the song of my room.

163. David.

164. Howard.

165. Graham.

166. David.

167. Paul.

168. Derek.

169. Graham.

170. Howard.

171. David.

172. Blue stretches...

173. yawns...

174. and is awake.

175. Blue.

176. Blue.

177. Blue stretches...

178. yawns...

179. and is awake.

180. Blue.

181. There's a photo in the newspaper this morning of refugees leaving Bosnia.

182. They look out of time.

183. Peasant women with scarves and black dresses

184. stepped from the pages of an older Europe.

185. One of them has lost her three children.

186. Lightning flickers through the hospital window.

187. At the door, an elderly woman stands waiting for the rain to clear.

188. I ask her if I can give her a lift, I've hailed a taxi.

189. "Can you take me to Holborn tube?"

190. On the way, she breaks down in tears.

191. She's come from Edinburgh.

192. Her son is in the ward.

193. He has meningitis and has lost the use of his legs.

194. I'm helpless as the tears flow.

195. I can't see her.

196. Just the sound of her sobbing.

197. One can know the whole world Without stirring abroad

198. Without looking out of the window, One can see the way of heaven

199. The further one goes, The less one knows

200. In the pandemonium of image, I present you with the universal Blue

201. Blue, an open door to soul

202. An infinite possibility Becoming tangible

203. Here I am again, in the waiting room.

204. Hell on earth is a waiting room.

205. Here you know you are not in control of yourself,

206. waiting for your name to be called.

207. 712213!

208. Here you have no name.

209. Confidentiality is nameless.

210. Where is 666?

211. Am I sitting opposite him/her?

212. Maybe 666 is the demented woman switching the channels on the TV.

213. What do I see Past the gates of conscience?

214. Activists invading Sunday Mass In the cathedral

215. An epic Czar Ivan denouncing the Patriarch of Moscow

216. A moon-faced boy who spits and repeatedly Crosses himself

217. As he genuflects

218. Will the pearly gates slam shut in The faces of the devout?

219. The demented woman is discussing needles.

220. There's always a discussion of needles here.

221. She has a line put into her neck.

222. How are we to be perceived...

223. if we're to be perceived at all?

224. For the most part, we're invisible.

225. If the Doors of Perception were cleansed...

226. well, then everything would be seen as it is.

227. The dog barks, the caravan passes.

228. Marco Polo stumbles across the Blue Mountain.

229. Marco Polo stops

230. and sits on a lapis throne by the River Oxus,

231. while he is ministered to by the descendants of Alexander the Great.

232. The caravan approaches,

233. blue canvasses fluttering in the wind.

234. Blue people from over the sea, ultramarine,

235. have come to collect the lapis with its flecks of gold.

236. The road to the city of Aqua Vitae is protected by a labyrinth

237. built from crystals and mirrors

238. which in the sunlight cause terrible blindness.

239. The mirrors reflect each of your betrayals, magnify them and drive you into madness.

240. Blue walks into the labyrinth.

241. Absolute silence is demanded of all its visitors,

242. so their presence does not disturb the poets who are directing the excavations.

243. Digging can only proceed on the calmest of days,

244. as rain and wind destroy the finds.

245. The archaeology of sound has only just been perfected,

246. and the systematic cataloguing of words has until recently

247. been undertaken in a haphazard way.

248. Blue watched, as a word or phrase materialised in scintillating sparks,

249. a poetry of fire which cast everything into darkness

250. with the brightness of its reflections.

251. As a teenager, I used to work for the Royal National Institute for the Blind

252. on their Christmas appeal for radios,

253. with dear Miss Punch, 70 years old,

254. who used to arrive each morning on her Harley-Davidson.

255. She kept us on our toes.

256. Her job as a gardener gave her time to spare in January.

257. Miss Punch Leather Woman was the first out dyke I ever met.

258. Closeted and frightened by my sexuality, she was my hope.

259. "Climb on. Let's go for a ride."

260. She looked like Edith Piaf, the sparrow,

261. and wore a cock-eyed beret at a saucy angle.

262. She bossed all the other old girls

263. who came back year after year for her company.

264. In the paper today...

265. Three quarters of the AIDS organisations are not providing safer sex information.

266. One district said they had no queers in their community,

267. but you might try district X, they have a theatre.

268. To be or not to be, that is the question.

269. My sight seems to have closed in.

270. The hospital is even quieter this morning.

271. Hushed.

272. I have a sinking feeling in my stomach.

273. I feel defeated.

274. My mind, bright as a button,

275. but my body, falling apart.

276. A naked light bulb in a dark and ruined room.

277. There's death in the air here, but we're not talking about it.

278. But I know the silence might be broken by distraught visitors screaming,

279. "Help, Sister! Help, Nurse!"

280. followed by the sound of feet rushing along the corridor.

281. Then silence.

282. Over the mountains is the shrine to Rita,

283. where all at the end of the line call.

284. Rita is the Saint of the Lost Cause.

285. The saint of all who are at their wit's end,

286. who are hedged in and trapped by the facts of the world.

287. These facts, detached from cause,

288. trapped the Blue Eyed Boy in a system of unreality.

289. Would all these blurred facts that deceive dissolve in his last breath?

290. For accustomed to believing in image, an absolute idea of value,

291. his world had forgotten the command of essence:

292. Thou Shall Not Create Unto Thyself Any Graven Image,

293. although you know the task is to fill the empty page.

294. From the bottom of your heart, pray to be released from image.

295. The image is a prison of the soul,

296. your heredity, your education,

297. your vices and aspirations,

298. your qualities, your psychological world.

299. I've walked behind the sky.

300. For what are you seeking?

301. The fathomless blue of bliss.

302. To be an astronaut of the void,

303. leave the comfortable house that imprisons you with reassurance.

304. Remember, to be going and to have are not eternal.

305. Fight the fear that engenders the beginning, the middle and the end.

306. For Blue, there are no boundaries or solutions.

307. Time is what keeps the light from reaching us.

308. How did my friends cross the cobalt river?

309. With what did they pay the ferryman?

310. As they set out for the indigo shore under this jet-black sky,

311. some died on their feet with a backward glance.

312. Did they see Death with the hell hounds pulling a dark chariot,

313. bruised blue-black,

314. growing dark in the absence of light?

315. Did they hear the blast of trumpets?

316. David ran home panicked on the train from Waterloo,

317. brought back exhausted and unconscious to die that night.

318. Terry who mumbled incoherently into his incontinent tears.

319. Others faded like flowers

320. cut by the scythe of the Blue Bearded Reaper,

321. parched as the waters of life receded.

322. Howard turned slowly to stone,

323. petrified day by day,

324. his mind imprisoned in a concrete fortress,

325. until all we could hear were his groans on the telephone circling the globe.

326. Mad Vincent sits on his yellow chair, clasping his knees to his chest.

327. Bananas.

328. The sunflowers wilt in the empty pot, bone dry, skeletal,

329. the black seeds picked into the staring face of a Halloween pumpkin.

330. He is unaware of Blue standing in the corner.

331. Fevered eyes glare at the jaundiced corn,

332. caw of the jet-black crows spiralling in the yellow.

333. The lemon goblin stares from the unwanted canvasses thrown in a corner.

334. Sourpuss suicide screams with evil,

335. clasping cowardly Yellowbelly, slit-eyed.

336. Blue fights diseased Yellowbelly,

337. whose fetid breath scorches the trees yellow with ague.

338. Betrayal is the oxygen of his devilry.

339. He'll stab you in the back.

340. Yellowbelly places a jaundiced kiss in the air,

341. the stink of pus blinds Blue's eyes.

342. Evil swims in the yellow bile. Yellowbelly's snake eyes poison.

343. He crawls over Eve's rotting apple wasp-like.

344. Quick as a flash, he stings Blue in the mouth.

345. "Aaaugh!"

346. His hellish legions buzz and chuckle in the mustard gas.

347. They'll piss all over you. Sharp nicotine-stained fangs bared.

348. Blue transformed into an insectocutor,

349. his Blue aura frying the foes.

350. We all contemplated suicide

351. We hoped for euthanasia

352. We were lulled into believing Morphine dispelled pain

353. Rather than making it tangible

354. Like a mad Disney cartoon

355. Transforming itself into Every conceivable nightmare

356. Karl killed himself.

357. How did he do it?

358. I never asked. It seemed incidental.

359. What did it matter if he swigged prussic acid or shot himself in the eye?

360. Maybe he dived into the streets

361. from high up in the cloud-lapped skyscrapers.

362. The nurse explains the implant.

363. You mix the drugs and drip yourself once a day.

364. The drugs are kept in a small fridge they give you.

365. Can you imagine travelling around with that?

366. The metal implant will set the bomb detector off in airports,

367. and I can just see myself travelling to Berlin with a fridge under my arm!

368. 'Derek Jarman. Derek Jarman to airport information please.'

369. Impatient youths of the sun

370. Burning with many colours

371. Flick combs through hair In bathroom mirrors

372. Fucking with fusion and fashion

373. Dance in the beams of emerald lasers

374. Mating on suburban duvets

375. Cum-splattered nuclear breeders

376. What a time that was

377. The drip ticks out the seconds,

378. the source of a stream along which the minutes flow,

379. to join the river of hours,

380. the sea of years and the timeless ocean.

381. The side effects of DHPG,

382. the drug for which I have to come into hospital to be dripped twice a clay, are:

383. Low white blood cell count,

384. increased risk of infection,

385. low platelet count, which may increase the risk of bleeding,

386. low red blood cell count,

387. fever, rash,

388. abnormal liver function,

389. chills,

390. swelling of the body,

391. infections,

392. malaise,

393. irregular heartbeat,

394. high blood pressure,

395. low blood pressure,

396. abnormal thoughts or dreams,

397. loss of balance,

398. coma,

399. confusion,

400. dizziness,

401. headache,

402. nervousness,

403. damage to nerves,

404. psychosis,

405. sleepiness,

406. shaking,

407. nausea,

408. vomiting,

409. loss of appetite,

410. diarrhoea,

411. bleeding from the stomach or intestine ,

412. abdominal pain,

413. increased number of one type of white blood cell,

414. low blood sugar,

415. shortness of breath,

416. hair loss,

417. itching,

418. hives,

419. blood in the urine,

420. abnormal kidney functions,

421. increased blood urea,

422. redness,

423. pain or irritation.

424. Retinal detachments have been observed in patients

425. both before and after initiation of therapy.

426. The drug has caused decreased sperm production in animals

427. and may cause infertility in humans, birth defects in animals.

428. Although there is no information in human studies,

429. it should be considered a potential carcinogen,

430. since it causes tumours in animals.

431. If you are concerned about any of the above side effects

432. or if you would like any further information, please ask your doctor.

433. In order to be put on the drug, you have to sign a piece of paper

434. stating you understand that all these illnesses are a possibility.

435. I really can't see what I am to do.

436. I'm going to sign it.

437. The darkness comes in with the tide

438. The year slips on the calendar

439. Your kiss flares

440. A match struck in the night

441. Flares and dies

442. My slumber broken

443. Kiss me again

444. Kiss me

445. Kiss me again

446. And again

447. Kiss me again

448. Kiss me

449. Kiss me again

450. And again

451. Never enough

452. Greedy lips

453. Speedwell eyes

454. Blue skies

455. A man sits in a wheelchair, hair awry,

456. munching through a packet of dry biscuits,

457. slow and deliberate as a praying mantis.

458. He speaks enthusiastically but sometimes incoherently of the hospice.

459. He says, "You can't be too careful who you mix with there.

460. "L mean, there's no way of telling the visitors, patients or staff apart.

461. "The staff have nothing to identify them except they're all into leather.

462. "The place is like an S&M club."

463. This hospice has been built by charity,

464. the names of the donors displayed for all to see.

465. Charity has allowed the uncaring to appear to care

466. and is terrible for those dependent on it.

467. Charity is big business.

468. Well, we go along with this,

469. so the rich and powerful who fucked us over once

470. fuck us over again and get it both ways.

471. We've always been mistreated,

472. so if anyone gives us the slightest sympathy,

473. we overreact with our thanks.

474. I am a mannish Muff Diving Size Queen!

475. ♪ He is a cock sucking Straight acting Lesbian man

476. ♪ Ball crushing bad manners Laddish nymphomaniac

477. ♪ He is a Not Gay

478. ♪ He is a Not Gay

479. ♪ He is a Not Gay

480. ♪ He is a Not Gay

481. ♪ He is a Not Gay

482. ♪ He is a Not Gay

483. ♪ He is a Not Gay

484. ♪ He is a Not Gay He is a Not Gay

485. " England!

486. England!

487. H.B. is in the kitchen Greasing his hair

488. He guards the space Against me

489. He calls it his office

490. At nine we leave for the hospital

491. H.B. comes back from the eye department

492. Where all my notes are muddled

493. He says It's like Romania in there

494. Two light bulbs Grimly illuminate the flaking walls

495. There is a box of dolls In the corner indescribably grimy

496. The doctor says, "Well, of course The kids don't see them"

497. "There are no resources To brighten the place up"

498. My eyes sting from the drops

499. Infection has halted

500. The flash leaves scarlet after-images Of the blood vessels in my eye

501. Teeth chattering February Cold as death

502. Pushes at the bedsheets

503. An aching cold interminable as marble

504. My mind Frosted with drugs ices up

505. A drift of empty snowflakes

506. Whiting out memory

507. Cross-eyed meddlesome consciousness

508. A blinkered twister Circling in spirals

509. Shall I?

510. Will I?

511. Doodling death watch Mind how you go

512. Oral DHPG is consumed by the liver,

513. so they have tweaked a molecule to fool the system.

514. What risk is there?

515. If I had to live forty years blind, I might think twice.

516. Treat my illness like the dodgems:

517. music, bright lights, bumps

518. and throw yourself into life again.

519. The pills are the most difficult.

520. Some taste bitter, others are too large.

521. I'm taking about thirty a day, a walking chemical laboratory.

522. I gag on them as I swallow them

523. and they come up half dissolved in the coughing and spluttering.

524. My skin sits on me like the shirt of Nessus.

525. My face irritates, as do my back and legs at night.

526. I toss and turn, scratching, unable to sleep.

527. I get up, turn on the light.

528. Stagger to the bathroom.

529. If I become so tired, maybe I'll sleep.

530. Films chase through my mind.

531. Once in a while, I dream a dream as magnificent as the Taj Mahal.

532. I cross southern India with a young spirit guide.

533. India, the land of my dreaming childhood.

534. The souvenirs in Moselle's peach and grey living room.

535. Granny called Moselle, called 'Girly', called May.

536. An orphan who lost her name, which was Ruben.

537. Jade monkeys, ivory miniatures, mah-jongg.

538. The winds and bamboos of China.

539. All the old taboos of blood lines and blood banks

540. Blue blood and bad blood

541. Our blood and your blood

542. I sit here - you sit there

543. As I slept, a jet slammed into a tower block.

544. The jet was almost empty,

545. but two hundred people were fried in their sleep.

546. The earth is dying and we do not notice it.

547. It's a young man frail as Belsen

548. Walking slowly down the corridor

549. His pale green hospital pyjamas Hanging off him

550. it's so quiet here this morning

551. Just the distant coughing

552. My jugsy eye blots out The young man

553. Who has just walked past My field of vision

554. This illness knocks you for six

555. Just as you start to forget it

556. A bullet in the back of the head Might be easier

557. You know, you can take longer than The Second World War to get to the grave

558. Ages and Aeons quit the room

559. Exploding into timelessness

560. No entrances or exits now

561. No need for obituaries or final judgements

562. We knew that time would end After tomorrow at sunrise

563. We scrubbed the floors And did the washing up

564. It would not catch us unawares

565. The white flashes you are experiencing in your eyes are quite common

566. when the retina is damaged.

567. The damaged retina has started to peel away,

568. leaving the innumerable black floaters,

569. like a flock of starlings swirling around in the twilight.

570. I am back in St Mary's to have my eyes looked at by the specialist.

571. The place is the same, but there is new staff.

572. How relieved I am not to have the operation this morning

573. to have a tap put into my chest.

574. I must try and cheer up H.B. as he's had a hell of a fortnight.

575. In the waiting room, a little grey man over the way is fretting

576. as he has to get to Sussex.

577. He says, "I'm going blind. I cannot read any longer."

578. A little later, he picks up a newspaper,

579. struggles with it for a moment and throws it back on the table.

580. My stinging eye-drops have stopped me reading,

581. so I write this in a haze of belladonna.

582. The little grey man's face has fallen into tragedy.

583. He looks like Jean Cocteau, without the poet's refined arrogance.

584. The room is full of men and women squinting into the dark

585. in different states of illness.

586. Some barely able to walk,

587. distress and anger on every face and then a terrible resignation.

588. Jean Cocteau takes off his glasses,

589. he looks about him with an undescribable meanness.

590. He has black slip-on shoes, blue socks, grey trousers,

591. a Fair Isle sweater and a herringbone jacket.

592. The posters that plaster the walls above him have endless question marks.

593. HIV/AIDS?

594. AIDS? HIV?

595. ARE YOU AFFECTED BY HIV/AIDS?

596. AIDS? ARC?

597. HIV?

598. This is a hard wait.

599. The shattering bright light of the eye specialists camera

600. leaves that empty sky-blue after-image.

601. Did I really see green the first time?

602. The after-image dissolves in a second.

603. As the photographs progress,

604. colours change to pink and the light turns to orange.

605. The process is a torture,

606. but the result, stable eyesight,

607. worth the price and the twelve pills I have to take a clay.

608. Sometimes, looking at them, I feel nauseous and want to skip them.

609. It must be my association with H.B.,

610. lover of the computer and king of the keyboard,

611. that brought my luck on the computer which chose my name for this drug trial.

612. I nearly forgot, as I left St Mary's, I smiled at Jean Cocteau.

613. He gave a sweet smile back.

614. I caught myself looking at shoes in a shop window.

615. I thought of going in and buying a pair, but stopped myself.

616. The shoes I'm wearing at the moment should be sufficient

617. to walk me out of life.

618. Pearl fishers In azure seas

619. Deep waters Washing the isle of the dead

620. In coral harbours amphora spill gold Across the still seabed

621. We lie there

622. Fanned by the billowing Sails of forgotten ships

623. Tossed by the mournful winds Of the deep

624. Lost Boys sleep forever In a dear embrace

625. Salt lips touching

626. In submarine gardens Cool marble fingers

627. Touch an antique smile

628. Shell sounds Whisper deep love

629. Drifting on the tide forever

630. The smell of him

631. Dead good looking In beauty's summer

632. His bluejeans Around his ankles

633. Bliss in my ghostly eye

634. Kiss me On the lips

635. On the eyes

636. Our name will be forgotten In time

637. No one will remember our work

638. Our life will pass like the traces of a cloud

639. Be scattered like mist that is chased By the rays of the sun

640. For our time is the passing of a shadow

641. And our lives will run like Sparks through the stubble

642. I place a delphinium, Blue, upon your grave