Derek Jarman (1942-1994)
You say to
the boy open your eyes
When he opens his eyes and sees the light
You make him cry out. Saying
O Blue come forth
O Blue arise
O Blue ascend
O Blue come in.
I am sitting with some friends in this cafe drinking coffee served by young refugees from Bosnia. The war rages across the newspapers and through the ruined streets of Sarajevo.
Tania said, “Your clothes are on back to front and inside out.” Since there were only two of us here I took them off and put them right then and there. I am always here before the doors open.
What need of so much news from abroad while all that concerns either life or death is all transacting and at work within me?
I step off the kerb and a cyclist nearly knocks me down. Flying in from the dark he nearly parted my hair.
I step into a blue funk.
The doctor in St Bartholomew’s Hospital thought he could detect lesions in my retina – the pupils dilated with belladonna – the torch shone into them with a terrible blinding light.
Look left
Look down
Look up
Look right.
Blue flashes in my eyes.
Blue Bottle Buzzing
Lazy days
The sky blue butterfly
Sways on a cornflower
Lost in the warmth
Of the blue heat haze
Singing the blues
Quiet and slowly
Blue of my heart
Blue of my dreams
Slow blue love
Of delphinium days.
Blue is the universal love in which man bathes – it is the terrestrial paradise.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………
Our name will be forgotten
In time
No one will remember our work
Our life will pass like the traces of a cloud
And be scattered like
Mist that is chased by the
Rays of the sun
For our time is the passing of a shadow
And our lives will run like
Sparks through the stubble.
I place a delphinium, Blue, upon your grave.
Excerpt(s) from the transcript of Blue, written and directed by Derek Jarman, 1993, © Basilisk Communications Limited
When he opens his eyes and sees the light
You make him cry out. Saying
O Blue come forth
O Blue arise
O Blue ascend
O Blue come in.
I am sitting with some friends in this cafe drinking coffee served by young refugees from Bosnia. The war rages across the newspapers and through the ruined streets of Sarajevo.
Tania said, “Your clothes are on back to front and inside out.” Since there were only two of us here I took them off and put them right then and there. I am always here before the doors open.
What need of so much news from abroad while all that concerns either life or death is all transacting and at work within me?
I step off the kerb and a cyclist nearly knocks me down. Flying in from the dark he nearly parted my hair.
I step into a blue funk.
The doctor in St Bartholomew’s Hospital thought he could detect lesions in my retina – the pupils dilated with belladonna – the torch shone into them with a terrible blinding light.
Look left
Look down
Look up
Look right.
Blue flashes in my eyes.
Blue Bottle Buzzing
Lazy days
The sky blue butterfly
Sways on a cornflower
Lost in the warmth
Of the blue heat haze
Singing the blues
Quiet and slowly
Blue of my heart
Blue of my dreams
Slow blue love
Of delphinium days.
Blue is the universal love in which man bathes – it is the terrestrial paradise.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………
Our name will be forgotten
In time
No one will remember our work
Our life will pass like the traces of a cloud
And be scattered like
Mist that is chased by the
Rays of the sun
For our time is the passing of a shadow
And our lives will run like
Sparks through the stubble.
I place a delphinium, Blue, upon your grave.
Excerpt(s) from the transcript of Blue, written and directed by Derek Jarman, 1993, © Basilisk Communications Limited
All paintings by Derek Jarman, starting with T.B. or not T.B. (1990), Fuck Me Blind (1993), Infection (1993) & AIDS blood (1992)
Derek Jarman in front of his Prospect Cottage
If AIDS never happened, who would we be?
If AIDS never happened, who would we be?
