Published in Overland Issue 201 Summer 2010 · Writing / Main Posts By the sea Philip Hammial I want it so the dead are blind. Blind the way Easter comfort washes a stick-dry corpse, passion as misplaced as that derailed train (Ann Arbor, MI, 1947) that ended up in a church, in a school room, in my parent’s bedroom, can’t remember which. What’s happening to my memory? My first dog’s name? The ladder joke? Blind as in the rage our boss manifests when he can’t find some fool to work for a dollar, his third world mindset hopelessly irreconcilable with our first. What about those boys who were playing cards on a tomb in a shit-infested seaside cemetery in Rabat (Morocco) in 1963, they probably would. Speaking of which: Valéry’s Le Cimetière marin in Sète that I visited in ’60, sitting for an hour or two under a pine tree wondering if I’d ever have the what-it-takes to write a cemetery by the sea poem. Probably not, at seventy-three I don’t like my chances. Which could be why I want it so that the dead are blind (& deaf as well, this poem as raucous as the Arabic of those boys in Rabat). Philip Hammial Philip Hammial has had twenty-eight poetry collections published. More by Philip Hammial › Overland is a not-for-profit magazine with a proud history of supporting writers, and publishing ideas and voices often excluded from other places. If you like this piece, or support Overland’s work in general, please subscribe or donate. Related articles & Essays 4 October 202418 October 2024 · Main Posts Announcing the Nakata Brophy Prize for Young Indigenous Writers 2024 longlist Editorial Team Sponsored by Trinity College at the University of Melbourne and supporters, the Nakata Brophy Prize for Young Indigenous Writers, established in 2014 and now in its ninth year, recognises the talent of young Indigenous writers across Australia. 16 August 202416 August 2024 · Poetry pork lullaby Panda Wong but an alive pig / roots in the soil /turning it over / with its snout / softening the ground / is this a hymn