under another sun

A different time Okay so I lied about Hammersmith Cemetery. Ended up taking yet another picture, and going for a short walk there with the French Bloke this lunchtime. It's like stepping into a different time, and we wandered around in it talking cheerfully about mortality. The FB's opinion is that the thing that remains after we die is not our spirit but actually the chemical elements that have made up our bodies, in the reverse of the usual religious orthodoxy. Left work at 4:00pm again, and made it back to Brighton very early. It's amazing the difference actually having an evening makes. As I left work I felt a wave of optimism about the future, and about poetry of all things. Arriving home I was surprised to find a hand-delivered envelope with a note from Anil, an old school friend, in it. I have not seen him for at least 25 years, but there were no contact details. As I type I am watching a recreation of the events of 9/11 on BBC tonight, due to the upcoming five year ...

Out of the trench On the train with Anton this morning. He is in what he called a trench , which is a sort of lifeless vacuum between crazes. He is unhappy and listless as all his recent crazes (such as wood fired pizza ovens or wet on wet watercolour technique or camping) are now ashes and dust to him. He callously rejected poetry as a potential craze, and the the only thing that instilled a gleam of cheer was talk of eating meat. Happily I am not in a trench. I have Hammersmith Cemetery! This looked particularly fine this morning and I was compelled to take even more photos, two of which are below. I will stop banging on about the cemetery now in this blog. Actually had work to do today, which involved me reading up about polio. If I get over my hypochondria, will this mean I won't have to do the disease stuff all the time I wonder? Otherwise had a chat with Reuben first thing, and simply got on with work. Had a short stroll by the river at lunch. And some futile headscratching w...

The cemetery and the sea Bad nightmares which I attribute to some fine cheese at Anton's place. Then into work, and luckily it was another slow day. This gave me a chance to quietly print off and post a MS to Poetry London. I have a backlog of poems I've not submitted anywhere and so am going to start sending them off. At lunchtime I took myself off to Hammersmith Cemetery again. I'd never spent an hour walking about in it, despite working in the same location for five years. Actually very peaceful, and poignant. I was taking notes for a poem, and jotted down some of the ornamentation: stone flowers and leaves, stone lilys, crosses, Celtic crosses, artfully broken pillars, anchors, scrolls, open stone books and bibles, Cleopatra's needles, tombs, urns, throne like chairs, a marble bed with pillows, angels with downcast heads, or looking up to heaven, and cherubs on the graves of children. There is an enormous amount of subsidence in the graveyard and most of the stones ...