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

That same tunnel-mouth darkness
and then a wordless feeling
and a half-instant when the train becomes a coffin
and then, from the opaque clatter of all those colours
      to a hushed green-blue expanse;
and the suddenness of hills dressed in their undergrowth.

And then,
the fresh absence of tourists
     on that idle beach;
and that coral island
     against a pale background of gloom
and that pair of boulders
     that gaze longingly at one another
          in a magical pause
               the eternal bewilderment of stone.

And then, the reality of my obvious attentiveness
in a sleep made uncertain with images
a slippery text
     punctuated
          line after line
               by the passing shrieks of seagulls.
And then, the pleasant smell of coffee in the fleeting space of                                           a  momentary street.

And then,
      “We’re there,” she said,
      “where’s your raincoat?”
The umbrella of her hair
     became
           that night
               a deluge of sunlight
                    across my shoulder.

And then,
      “O beloved of myself when young . . .
            you see
                 Hafez,
                      I too
                           in old age
                                 have turned to love fondly.

And then, in her glance the old woman had
      the gentility of my grandmother:
if only she were squatting on the floor
a veil over her head,
if only she were speaking Persian,
and if she took her glasses off
      between verses of the Koran
and wiped her tears with the corner of her scarf,
if only she were reciting formidable passages by heart . . .

And “where did you say,” she’d asked,
and I had said – I still do – “Iran.”
And then
Forugh Farrokhzad says
      “I answer with an elegy in washed-out rhyme,”
           but I say,
                  “No, my bitter sister, no.
It has to rhyme with viran, ruins,
     only with viran.”

And then – I used to frighten my grandmother –
I’d say,
       “I dreamed again the last Imam had come.
He came without a head
and his neck
was a fountain jetting blood.
I recognized his horse Zoljenah,
     and his sword Zolfeqar
          and it seemed
               of all his countless followers
                     he didn’t find a single one
                          upright or honest.
The lightning from his sword
     illuminated the dark, fear-ridden horizons
         soundlessly
               again and again;
and as long as one was left alive
     from among the multitudes come forth to welcome him
          he would not stop slaughtering them.”

And then, behind Grandmother’s spectacles
her eyes welled up with tears.

And then,
     as if she were my grandmother,
I feel like frightening
     this old woman on the train.
I say,
“Mine is a tribe which eats human flesh.”
“Come?” she asks in Italian.
And I add
“Cannibals have raised their heads
from the forest depths of my history;
and from within
     they have laid waste
          to my blood
               to my land
                    and to my customs,
                          to my ideals
                                and to my faith
                                      yes my faith
                                           in mankind
                                                 yes mankind
                                                       in my soul . . .
Oh, this time the poison is welling up from the deepest root
and up the green stalk.
This time –
it’s no use blaming others –
this time
it is from the deepest crevice of the soul
that the stench of death rises.

No.
No use bewailing this or that.
The feather that guides the enemy’s arrow
the axe that severs at the root
      the newly grown trunk of our lover’s flight
            comes from our own plumage;
                 it once fledged our wings . . .
Thus I spoke, from my fancy, of my own condition.
But the little woman only asks again, “Come?”
And I say
“But I’ve brought a suitcase full of culture with me.”
And she askes, “Ma
      che lingua e questa?”
And I see
       that this old woman is not my grandmother
and she cannot know
      what poetry and dreams,
             nightmares and poetry are.

And then, I address my own imaginings:
       “First the sea,” I say, “and then whatever happens –
            and this time I will not give up my books either.”

And then –
      oh yes,
it was at that spot, right there
      that I smelled her hair
           kissed her eyes,
               and felt for the first time
                    the restlessness of her breasts on mine.

And there is that coloured patch of cloud
which made me feel
     I could take the crescent moon’s little crown
           and hammer an authorless masterpiece
                onto the wall of night
with a star for a nail.

And then, love
which has its own way of laughing
a mouth which opened in volcanic joy
at a time when I could have been darker
      than a mountain’s soul,
and then,
      – I ask the sun to be my witness –
             I cross a mean-spirited ocean
                  and stayed utterly dry.

And then,
      I notice again the purring wave
           rubbing its back against my feet,
and the sea gives off the flowing scent of her embrace,
still –
that bitch, vista of breasts and hips.

And then,
I don’t look at myself,
no, not at myself,
because I know
     that among these ageless presences
it is just me
    only twenty years older.

[Borgio Verezzi, 1984]