poesy and life

I'm stalled. Halfway - more, I thought, and now think much less - than halfway through a long and ambitious article on 'archaism and tone in contemporary poetry'. Sometimes I dazzle myself with the crystalline beauty of my own arguments, and other times I realise the arguments are all in my head and don't in fact even exist. In fact, what IS archaism and tone in contemporary poetry? I made it up and I don't even know what it means.

Also on a long and ambitious poem about Southwark Cathedral. This, taking in as it does the whole sweep of London's history, had better be clear as day when it's finished, which will be in about ten years. When I finish it it will be half a page with the history edited out.

I have all the time in the world. I thought I could set up a little table and write on my little balcony, but it's hot and I'm bored. I just look over the balcony edge at the little Hassidic children playing in their long dresses and tights - in this weather! - and their pale, thin mothers endlessly leaning on the posts by the pavement, in long sleeves and headscarves.

I was standing on the balcony at sunset, which I love doing, the sunsets are ineffably beautiful up here - you get orange reflections off Ally Pally in the distance - and a man turned into my road from the high street. Late thirties, forties maybe, a black man in a white shirt, untucked, with the sleeves rolled up, just the end of a long day at work. (Of course my inner art director was coming out: lovely looking man.) I couldn't tell if I thought he was going home to someone, or just to nothing. He never looked right or left, just walked along, holding a briefcase or bag. He walked first towards me and under my balcony, then along down the road, in the dimming light, while beyond him this huge orangeness exploded over the horizon. I watched him from behind as he got smaller and smaller, never slowed down or speeded up, just kept going, till at last he was just the speck of his chirt, white in the gold light, and then he disappeared at the end of the road.