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

When at last my time is up
And the Bristol South CLP,
The Malago Society and the Circle in the Square,
Having heard a sigh of relief, piously murmur
Ah well, he wasn’t such a bad old sod,
I direct that my obsequies be such
As my relations and friends will enjoy and remember.

Don’t lock me in a coffin
And lower me down a damp and dirty hole
Or drop me through a trapdoor to an oven
But lay me with my face towards the light
In a wagon painted blue with scarlet wheels
And let an English shire horse (two, if needed)
Drag me to the top of Beachy Head.

Let joyful music go before my corpse
(The band of the Grenadiers will do
Or, failing them, the Dagenham Girl Pipers).
Let them play When the Saints Go Marching In –
I was no saint, but it’s a lively tune.
Let the mourners ride behind me in a coach
Well provided with liquid refreshment
And let a brewer’s dray bring up the rear
(Fed Special, I suggest, or Newcastle Brown).

Lay me on a pyre tall enough for all to see
And as I ascend in Elijah’s chariot of fire
Let music, song and dancing speed me on my journey
And rockets race me to the sky.
Let the wind bear my ashes where it will,
Westward to the Downs, eastward to the marshes,
Southward to the Channel or northward to the Weald,
Anywhere I shall feel at home.
As my sole monument and epitaph
Above my charred bones build a barrow
Somewhere about the height of Silbury Hill
That passing ships may see and recognize me
And archaeologists in a thousand years
May excavate me, wondering
Now who the hell was he?