from william gass, "on being blue"
So blue, the word and the condition the color and the act,
contrive to contain one another, as if the bottle of the genii
were its belly, the lamp's breath the smoke of the wraith.
There is that lead-like look. There is the lead itself, and
all those bluey hunters, thieves, those pigeon flyers who
relieve roofs of the metal, and steal the pipes too. There's
the blue pill that is the bullet's end, the nose, the plum, the
blue whistler, ad there are all the bluish hues of death.
Is it the sight of death, the thought of dying? What sinks us
to a deeper melancholy: sexual incompleteness or its spastic
conclusion? What seems to line our life with satin? What brings
the rouge to both our cheeks? Loneliness, emptiness,
worthlessness, grief.