Nunhead Cemetery
Will Hatchett
There’s headless Harry or at least his ghost
The street that was blitzed by an air raid
The boy VC who died, too soon, at his post
All of them runners up in life’s parade
Inscriptions plead for a future life
Upstairs but, then, there is downstairs as well
Dear, x, a devoted husband, or wife
Deserves to be in heaven – not hell
Like primed fuses in the burial ground
It is in nettle and white campion
Not the graves that eternity is found
Life, not death, is time’s true champion
There is no heaven or hell, only now
See it is breaking through each jumbled row
