the salmon, sucked sun

“Seaward the salmon, sucked sun slips,
And the dumb swans drub blue”

—Dylan Thomas, “Prologue”, The Poems of Dylan Thomas, 1971.

Objectified

American Artifact

white with blue lines

“The pencil I’m writing with is yellow, with the numeral 2. I want to note the tools I’m using, just for the record. . . .
    I have my paper, legal size, white with blue lines. I want to write ten thousand pages. But already I see that I’m repeating myself. I’m repeating myself.”

—Don DeLillo, Cosmopolis, 2003.

The white was vital to the soul of the poem

“He looked for poems of four, five, six lines. He scrutinized such poems, thinking into every intimation, and his feelings seemed to float in the white space around the lines. There were marks on the page and there was the page. The white was vital to the soul of the poem.”

—Don DeLillo, Cosmopolis, 2003.

What is white?

“How do we know anything? How do we know the wall we’re looking at is white? What is white?”

—Don DeLillo, Cosmopolis, 2003.

Blue

“Each evening, ’bout the time for daylight to die
Each evening, ’bout the time when nighttime is nigh
Comes a feeling
Such a lonely feeling

It finds me anywhere I happen to be
Reminds me, ain’t nobody bluer than me
What a feeling
Such a lonely feeling

I pray to heaven, O lord what can I do?
But soon, soon as the evening sun goes down
I’m blue

Blue and wrapped up in sorrow
Blue like there’s no tomorrow
Empty and discontented
With life’s indigo hue

Each morning, I try to greet the day with a smile
By evening, after laying low for a while
Comes a feeling
Such a lonely feeling

I’m blue
I’m blue
I’m blue”

—Gildo Mahones (lyrics) and Jon Hendricks, “Blue,” recorded by Lambert, Hendricks & Ross in 1959.

a smart charcoal gray

“Above him shone the light, large, clinical and fierce. No furniture, just whitewashed walls, quite close all around, and the gray steel door, a smart charcoal gray, the color you see on clever London houses. There was nothing else. Nothing at all. Nothing to think about, just the savage pain.”

—John le Carré, The Spy Who Came In From the Cold, 1963.

Midnight Sun

“Your lips were like a red and ruby chalice, warmer than the summer night.
The clouds were like an alabaster palace rising to a snowy height.
Each star its own aurora borealis, suddenly you held me tight,
I could see the midnight sun. . . .

Was there ever such a night, it’s a thrill I still don’t quite believe,
But after you were gone, there was still some stardust on my sleeve.

The flame of it may dwindle to an ember, and the stars forget to shine,
And we may see the meadow in December, icy white and crystalline.
But oh my darling always I’ll remember when your lips were close to mine,
And we saw the midnight sun.”

—Johnny Mercer (lyrics), Lionel Hampton and Sunny Burke (music), “Midnight Sun,” 1947. The lyrics were written subsequent to the instrumental. “Johnny Mercer was driving along the freeway from Palm Springs to Hollywood, California, when he heard the instrumental on his car radio and started to set words to the song as he drove,” according to Wikipedia.

Orange Colored Sky

“I was walking along minding my business
When love came and hit me in the eye
Flash! Bam! Alakazam!
Out of an orange colored sky.”

—Milton DeLugg & Willie Stein, “Orange Colored Sky,” 1950.