Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

“There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day:
“And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores,
“And desiring to be fed of the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table: moreover, the dogs came and licked his sores.”

                                                                        – St Luke 16.19-21

A sick man’s time creeps slowly on,
Like some enormous loathsome snail;
But now my power of creeping’s gone,
Even if I tried, I’d fail.

I know that nothing now can save
My skin and bones from the empty gloom
Of the doorless walls of the grave;
I’ll only move from this room to that room:

“The way of the world is such that those
Who’ve got shall get (and why should they give?),
While those who have little shall lose it, and lose –
When nothing’s left – the right to live.”

Or perhaps I’m already dead.
Are the gaudy horrors whose shapes have flaunted
Their limbs in nightmares through my head
Nothing but ghosts? Is my skull haunted

By entirely immaterial forms?
This ancient heathen god-like rabble
Would tickle a poet’s coffin-worms
With playful whispers, gruesome babble.

Or could it be I’m buried alive?
The morning comes to tell me no.
My corpse-like hand begins to inscribe
Memories of lives and lives ago.

     *

Now that I can scarcely breathe
Like a Christian I bequeath –
As befits this hour of truth –
Jaundiced eye and aching tooth

To my worthy enemies: I,
Weak of limb but sound of mind,
Hereby leave my griping wind
And my grinding poverty

To the rich and greedy. May
All whose virtues barred my way
Rot with clap. Acute attacks
Lay them helpless on their backs.

Invalided, impotent,
I devise my cramps, my slobber,
Bed-sores, haemorrhoids, and such other
Gifts the gracious Lord has lent

To the comfy and complacent.
May the Lord cut off their nascent
Hopes. And when they’re dead and rotten,
May their gettings be forgotten.

      *

I have smelt my way through every smell
In this earthly kitchen: I know full well
The taste and aftertaste of pleasure.
I have lived like a hero, without measure.
I have drunk my coffee and eaten my cake
And taken all there is to take
From the women I’ve kept. For better or worse,
There was silk on my back and gold in my purse.
Like the well-bred agent in the thriller,
I owned a house, I owned a villa:
I happily lay in the summer grass,
And the lucky sun shone out of my arse.
A wreath of laurels graced my brow
And scented dreams, I don’t know how,
Seemed to come true – of roses, of May –
Till I revelled in roses day after day,
Lazy and drunk on the wines of the south –
And roasted pigeons flew into my mouth –
And angels descended like golden rain,
Producing bottles of champagne.
These dreams were nothing but soap-bubbles:
They burst and left me with my troubles.
I lie here now in a damp bed
With rheumatic joints and an aching head.
And my soul is well and truly ashamed
To hear my sinful pleasures named:
I’ve paid for each greedy, selfish day
And lecherous night with blank dismay,
Despair and bitter helplessness.
And bed-bugs add to my distress.
Afflicted by worry, oppressed by sorrow,
I was forced to lie, I was forced to borrow
From whom I could – young pimp, old whore.
As a matter of fact, I had to implore
Them for money. Now I’m sick to death
Of hurrying and scurrying. Out of breath,
I lay me down to rest and die.
Above the clouds in the blissful sky
All Christian brothers meet again.
And so, dear friends, goodbye till then.

     *

Though I can’t help laughing, cloudy skies
Oppress me – till now I remember
The wind that tore at the leaves on the trees
One far-off, homesick November.

Also the pious girl who sang
The Lullaby of Later. –
I’ll only stop when my heart stops
Serving as agitator

At long-lost posts in the hopeless war
Of spiritual liberation,
Composing verses for ranting crowds
Whose apparent unification

Nurtures a self-destructive greed –
Condoned by all the churches –
Which alienates and isolates.
Civilization lurches.

And yet when I’m afraid in the night –
Or bored (though only folly
Fears nothing) – it cheers me up to write
A rhyme lampooning lolly.

And the thought of ecstasy or guilt
Consuming roasted pigeon
Inspires me once again to tilt
At Christ’s divisive religion.

      *

A sound of trumpets fills the air:
The Day of Judgement’s dawning!
The dead are rising everywhere,
Stretching themselves and yawning.

Whatever’s still got legs trots off
To where the court’s in session –
Bandaged in dirty off-white stuff,
Like mummies in procession.

Jesus is judge in His Father’s court.
His disciples are the jury.
None who has done the things he ought
To have done need fear their fury.

Unless, of course, it’s not good works
But faith which saves the spirit –
Though surely some celestial perks
Accrue to lives of merit?

At Josaphat the bodies stop.
To help decide their cases
The court orders them all to drop
Their masks and show their faces.

Only in some such summary way
Can masses upon masses
Of souls be judged on the one day.
The Good Lord dons His glasses:

Goats to the left and sheep to the right.
They’re split without much bother.
For sheep shall be blessed in the realm of light
And goats shall be damned in the other.

      *

Forget the holy parabolics,
Forget the pious explanations –
Can’t we find a simple answer
By ourselves to these damned questions?

Why should the just man, bleeding, wretched,
Drag his cross from bad to worse,
While some happy-go-lucky villain
Wins hands down on his high horse?

Who’s to blame? Is God Almighty
Somehow non-omnipotent?
Or is He the mischief-maker?
What a mean, malevolent – !

And so we go on asking, until
At last a little handful
Of earth shuts up our drivelling mouths –
But is that an answer?

      *

Shattered by the things I’ve seen,
Begging God to pity me,
Begging him to put an end
To this squalid tragedy,

All at once I saw a sphinx
With the body of a woman:
Clawless, tailless, with no word-play
Turning on the merely human . . .

For the riddle of the true
Sphinx is dark as death. Jocasta’s
Son and husband had it easy.
Knowledge of this sort would blast us

And our world of splendid human
Folly into swirls of rubble.
Aren’t we lucky? The sphinx-woman
Cannot fathom her own riddle.

      *

What lay on my eyes was darkness,
What lay on my mouth was lead.
With stiffening heart and forehead
I lay among the dead.

How long I had lain there sleeping
I can’t say now for sure.
I woke when I heard her knocking:
She was standing at death’s door.

“Won’t you get up now, Heinrich?
Behold, the eternal Sun;
The dead are all arisen;
Eternal joy has begun.”

My love, I can’t get up yet.
I seem to have lost my sight.
I must have cried my eyes out.
All I can see is the night.

“I’ll kiss you better, Heinrich,
I’ll kiss away your night.
I want you to see the angels
And all this heavenly light.”

My love, I can’t get up yet.
Perhaps you haven’t heard –
I’m bleeding from where you stabbed me
In the heart with a single word.

“I’ll stroke it gently, Heinrich,
I’ll relieve your heart of its pain.
And then it will stop bleeding.
And never hurt again.”

My love, I can’t get up yet.
My head is bleeding, too.
I blew my aching brains out
When I was robbed of you.

“With my curls and ringlets, Heinrich,
I’ll stop up the hole in your head.
My hair will staunch your bleeding.
I’ll heal your wounds instead.”

She begged with such loving kindness,
Who could have answered no?
I wanted her. My body
Tried to get up and go.

My clotted wounds reopened.
A flood of bleeding broke
From my rigid heart and forehead.
And then I woke.

     *

On the sands a girl stood sighing,
Wearing an anxious frown.
It almost had her crying
To see the sun go down.

My dear, though it may bore you,
You really shouldn’t mind:
The sun goes down before you,
But it comes back up behind.