Am spending all of today copying and pasting my poems into my website, I'll probably organise them afterwards. I have about 400 to 500 to do and can manage 100 an hour optimally. It feels good to revisit these old things, I can see a progression from the early poems to the ones in 365 Universes. My poems from the past couple of years are far better, I think; I'm more pleased with them. This is due to contact with more poets (did I know any in 2010?), reading a lot more poetry, and more social contact and experience generally, so I have more themes to play with and better command of written language. I will continue.
My cold marches on and I woke three times in sweats from fantastical dreams.
In the first nightmare I was chasing, or hiding from, an armed man in a cluttered house, like a maze of debris and narrow corridors and no ceiling, something like the trash-compactor in Star Wars but outdoors, and maze-like.
The second dream was the most visually striking; a night street with dark clouds during a wind-storm. A distant cyclone, in white, grew closer, then violent lightning strikes appeared around us (I was with a second, undefined, person), then, from the raging sky, huge flaming rocks, of black and magma, drawing trails of black smoke, fell all around. One wooden house near me was hit and burst into instant flame as these boulders, some the size of cars crashed all around me. I feared for the people in the houses but saw no living thing. My casual mood grew to anxious, then worry for my life.
In the third dream, calm by comparison, I met the band Whitesnake after being pulled towards them after I saw a Tweet by them. I talked casually to this band of rockers who seemed like school-boy friends. I spoke to one of their wives who confirmed that they hadn't grown up. A strange dream as I barely know of Whitesnake. They seemed like nice chaps in the dream, I thought of them more as equals there.
Despite illness and tiredness, a plague across the earth, injustices aplenty, and stock market and general financial calamity, I feel positive and energised; inspired and ready for (angels' willing) more decades of creativity. Seeing my old work has indicated a clear line of progress and reminded me of a steady path of success. I will continue to work at my maximum pace to serve humanity artistically. Mel Woodend asked me what art means to me, I replied that art defines civilisation; it is that which is beyond mere survival, it is the ultimate battle; to do our best, like a sport that is beyond rules, a self-training program for personal mastery. Art makes us the best we can be.
