On Revisiting John Betjeman’s GraveTen years ago we slouched up here to you,a band of gobby boys against the world,a cobweb string of paying gigs to keep us from the dole.We walked up from the beach across the easyseventh hole, new beards and cocksure hair,to try and forge ourselves a link,then fasten it to yours.The poem that I wrote claimed some successin this. But mostly it was mimicry -a ditty dashed like homework thena rush down to the sea.Today I come at you from Pitymealone, down salty Cornish lanes, their hedgesheaving with the goods of May,until I reach the courseand see the sunken church behind the green.Your grave is just the same, the stone looks fresh.It seems the decade has been kind to you ,but what of me?For one, I know you that much better now.Back then you were the bard of railways,of chintz and church and teashop trysts,in towns I’d never know.But now I see the terror, shame and sin.The endings I would shrug a shoulder atwill startle like a newborn’s crythen heap their weight on me.