Philip’s Log: Entries about my moonlit sylph

During the last two months of 2013 I entered a reading glut. It had taken me much of the year to finish the two Orhan Pamuk novel’s Snow (2004) and The Black Book (1994/ 2006). A friend even commented over the summer that perhaps I was deliberately taking my time with Snow because I was

Productivity Times Four

It’s been a busy two weeks on the writing front. In addition to preparing two articles, one on the gap year in my twenties and another on overseas work experience in my thirties, I’ve continued to make the regular poetry posts on this blog. Item three is the most exciting. On Tuesday, my second book

A Bequest of Wonder

Within the confines of a silken sheet, the observers attend upon the temple. Before it returns to ash and dust, they light a votive offering. It is   in a portrait the thumbnail of the painter’s right hand   the sparse arm-hairs of a samurai beset by ghosts   the frog at the woman’s feet,

Scherzo: Allegro before the Finale

as told to me by Klara Last week three of my octogenarian friends dropped in. Nobody drops in on me! But they did: from Brighton, Cambridgeshire and Dorset.   So, where are we going out tonight? asked my friend from Brighton. I had no idea, but we found pizza.   (I don’t know why I

A definition, notably for the cloud-dwelling artists

Success is speaking to the people who matter, In networking when due. Waste no time on a satyr. Success is doing what you should for Work, for Security, for Good. It’s silence when your speech would rattle, And indifference to a pointless battle. Success is deafness to all that’s ugly, But sympathy if your deed’s

Half-a-dozen, a wildcard plus one

A few recent poems have orbited around summer. 29°C captures some moments from the July heatwave. Another Summer’s Day explores more delights of the warmer season. Summer food and outdoor eating, which we enjoy at such times with childlike relish, are enacted by the child characters who feature in Packed Lunches and Summermelon. Tightly Sealed and Look At draw on observations of ordinary

Recycled

In the window is from Senegal, and beautifully put together: the bird. The artist, with the help of sticks and other flotsam, beautifully put together the bird. The artist has been washed ashore with other birds beautifully put together with the help of sticks. They make beautifully put together birds from the window, these sticks

Nice Words #1

Roverhampton Bodensee plimsoles mixologist category salient stubble snub rubble rabble and ruin — I love lists and every now and then I wander around with a list either in my head or on scraps of paper of “current nice words.” At the moment this list includes torsion and fealty. The above list dates from mid-December

Rooftop Thoughts

The Gullies (Covent Garden, London) I have a personal Thursday pleasure and it is to choose my PCF picture of the week over a strong black coffee. The ten I have chosen to date are a visual log of the last two months of my London journey. “The Gullies (Covent Garden, London)” is my picture

PUCKISH PAINTINGS ABOVE THE STAIRS

Here follows a piece I wrote recently about the work of contemporary Swedish artist, Per-Inge Isheden. AN INTRODUCTION TO PER-INGE ISHEDEN VIEWING ‘INFERNO’                          In London’s Mayfair is a Regency building with eight flights of narrow stairs. Above those stairs, in the highest apartment, I first viewed “Inferno” (2007; image right). The vollmilch nymphs pouring champagne