under another sun

Woke up in the middle of the night and a poem was in my head, so much of it in fact and so pesteringly did it visit me, that I had to get up and write it down at my desk between 3:30 and 5:00. Eventually I crept back to bed, although Lorraine was awake when I got there. The poem is called How to poeticise with a hammer . Not sure if it is mad, or, if mad,  interestingly mad. A lunch meeting with Robin postponed. A chat with Mum this afternoon, who is looking forward to seeing Toby and Romy and having a break. Up a bit sluggishly, after Lorraine had left for work,  and worked on it again. A quiet day, happily working on PK stuff at my desk. Broke off for a longish walk in the afternoon up on the top of the down we are on the side of, looking down to the sea. Bright and cool day. A slight haze draining the colours in the distance. Home and I cooked for Lorraine and had an early night. But not before Beth had returned from her first burlesque class, as she is going to use ...

Amused Up early giving the old chien fou a glass of orange juice before he headed back up to London to do an honest day's work. For my part I worked on a book proposal, and some poetry. Also my investigations are sending me to read lots of poetry again, delving back into Milton, and Homer. This in part thanks to Calliope, who is named after the Greek muse of epic poetry, and has set me thinking about muses in general. There is a convention in epic poems through the millennia to evoke a muse at the beginning of the poem to help the poet get through whatever has to be written. I very much like the idea of summoning something from silence, because I believe that the poetry I like comes from a dialoge with silence. Like this in Milton, early in Paradise Lost, where the poet calls on the help of the muse, or “spirit”. Milton wants its help to aid him in “Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme.” He pictures this muse, probably Urania the muse of astronomy, “...with ...