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

Quivering with pride at the summer’s end,
dalliance-drunk, the city offered its lap
to the sun, cloud-conqueror. Generous, he too gave
long luminous blessings, rays all over the sea,
a deep delight diffused in land and water.

Wanton boats on the horizon, sails proud against
the wind’s exuberance, undying holiday-hopes
afloat on frail rafts. Daring heavenly birds
peck at mussels for the tasty meat inside,
while children look for shells simply for fun.

On the crowded pebbly beach everywhere
colour-craving white bodies patiently sun-bathe.
Youngish grandmothers eager to bask in the warmth
glow in white sun-hats and dark sun-glasses.
A bubbling fountain of delights.
Put down your cash, rub in your oil, hire a deck-chair.

Shopkeepers sit in rows. Quick-eyed, alert for prey,
the sharp smart hawks swiftly supply what’s needed:
coffee, cigarettes, coke. The litter flutters:
matches, glittering foil, crumpled packets.
There the smell of oil, of fishermen’s fresh gifts.
The sea yields its harvest, and fried fillets sell hot.

In idle icecream-licking the long day goes
for some, and in watching the tiresome tides.
The day sighs. Suddenly the cool Venus flowers.
Cars sleek as marbles run on the wide raised road.
All the lights come on. Music calls to the dance-hall.
Crystalline glasses gleam with a million wares.
From dressed-up windows sandal-coloured dolls
beckon with their fingers. Brilliantly advertised,
the Indian wizard wisely shakes his beard
and counts his coins, the clever astrologer.

Ruffled, lamp-begirdled,
the sea heaves, softly moaning. On the pier,
busy and lit up, the crowds stream, excited.
And there, none too covered,
a voluptuous woman walks, held by a restless lover.

What are these jokes that the warm wind blows to us?
‘Perhaps this year our summer won’t come to an end!
We thank the sun, in whose bright debt we’re bound.
Let winter come to the north, we’re in the island’s south!’

Autumn stretched out his hand.
One morning the sun hid himself. A soft rain began to fall.
Clouds covered the day. The pebbly beach was deserted.
Blurred and vaporous under the overcast sky,
the world stalled with pique. The burgher quiet at his window
thought: so the sun wants to make a move at last –
O.K., let him go!
Tradesmen shut their shops. Fish-frying came to a halt.
Even the lame man with the camera who’s always begging
to take your pictures was nowhere to be seen.
In the dumb afternoon, self-absorbed in fog,
fires were lit in homes. Rain fell on the still city.

Then Preston Park, soaked, began to wonder
what slow messenger the dim twilight had brought.
The row of houses on the western hill kept mum,
but in the old hill’s valley the poplar-youths had no doubts.
‘It’s he of the cruel nails, the dead autumn’s ghost,
sure death-signal to our beloved infants, our leaves,
ruthless initiator of the penance we must undergo.
Save us from the north wind, father, listen to our prayer!’

At once came the wind. Shuddering with each gust,
paler and paler went the green, till the last trace was lost.
The faded, blotted-out yellow looked frightened at first,
but day by day it livened up, till at last it was on fire.

Who are these standing erect, these rows of intrepid soldiers,
their khaki glowing, only with no fares to go home?
Buddhist monks bound to their orders? Ascetics in hordes?
Thirsting for the setting sun like western clouds?
The dying season’s pyre? Or has the vermilion line,
renunciation-saddened, saffron, like an orange in colour,
transient, trembling on the anxious hair-parting
of a high-caste woman whose widowhood is at hand,
changed itself to these wind-tossed avenues?

Deep was the breath of lamentation.
Little by little in a fortnight’s time
the gold-hoard stood robbed. Hour by hour
daylong they fell, the crafted picturesque leaves,
like coloured snowflakes, until the rain came,
the last enemy, with an icy spear in his hand,
and in one night felled the lingerers.

Wet day, dozy mind, lost light, decamped sun-splendour.
Morning showed the plant-beggars, with raised skeletal hands.
They lay dead in heaps, in all the lanes and alleys,
those who, in autumn’s cruel Holi, had played with colours.