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

I

          my grandfather was the world’ s best organist
school and church
                    he served faithfully
          for thousands of years.   died at last in 1927
hymn 424, vv. 1-9.   I was thinking about him
          today
                    as I rowed a dinghy on Lake Opplinien

                              our daughter is sick
                    is going around with big cottonwool wads
          in her ears. she drinks red medicine
grandfather used to drink fermented redcurrant juice
          behind the gooseberry hedge
                    and read the choirbook

the light is almost too strong here.   one
          observes summer through the mosquito-net
                    a crape
          full of torn-off fly-wings.   on the pier
a perch
          is drying.   its got the hook in its eye
the others I throw back in the lake
          and they vanish down
                    to darker water
                              with red streaks of blood behind them

every thousand years
          a bird flickers past
                    and announces
that a second of eternity
                              has been lost.   voices
                    reach me from the other shore
          or from the clouds

the blessed day

          cumulus     cumulus

II

          sacrifice to your ancestors.   the water
bears me.   the smell of cow
                    hangs in the air.   the water
          drips from their muzzles. the earth
is a body that breathes
          like the cows’ taut brown stomachs
                    filled with wet grass.   for thousands of years
          their mournful eyes have
looked out over the lake

                              a fellow in high rubber boots
                    is cutting the rotten reeds
          with a scythe.   ‘damn you! damn you!’ he shouts
soon the whole lake is grown over.   flies
                    bite into the cows’ skins
          lay their eggs
right in summer’s flesh
                              which quickly darkens

1921.   grandfather opened all the doors
          in the presbytery house
                    to let the animals
          come in and drink

III

all the little old ladies in Leksand
          loved him far into the 60s
filled the whole church
                    with their sighing.   heavy breathing
          that drowned out my own
as if the church itself
                              drew breath.   they had
blood -red streaks in their eyes
          as if from a fish-hook.   one way or another
                    there were too many of them
some had to be off

                              they moved gently
                    through the summer
          dressed for another century.   sat
in the Rest Home garden
                    and talked about him
                              while their world filled up
                    with tourists.   everywhere
          men in shorts and bare tummies
stinking of sweat in the milk-shop.   lord
                                        even in church

the fellow’s still stomping around in the reeds
          shouting   ‘they’re getting darker. they’re
                    getting darker every day.’
on the road a lorry passes
          with milk-bottles.   I understand
                    their clinking against each other

                    the fortissimo from J. O. Wallin is silent now.   silent
          now one by one the old ladles
collapse
                    in their gardens.   change
                              into little mounds.   the potato-pots
                    go on boiling
          in their fireplaces.   day after day
black soot

IV

‘med-dicine’s nasty.’   the mountains
          are breathing gently round about us
                    the pines too
                              and the house-walls.   his suit
                    gets greener every year
          in the trunk with moth-balls.   some
dead wasps are also lying there
                              from what year?

                    they’re dead now
the old ladies.   it’s impossible
          to live in a song.   their plaits
                    are young again.   their bodies
          light as wasps.   vanish downwards
to darker water.   ‘nasty!’

Martin Luther
          why did you never visit the old people’s home
                    disguised as a young organist?

now she’ s asleep
          our daughter.   my wife
                    is nursing our other daughter.   everyone
          must join in.   live on
in a song

I open the doors
                    into our house