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

Celestial algebra! The melodious crystal of the raven’s skeleton (when ravens fly, they strum austere vibrations in the ether, syntagmas of ice). “This explains a multitude of things.”

*

And similarly: there exists a bird which, on summer mornings (the sky – the cruelty of Prussic acid), cracks the whip far too harshly. Oh,flagellated bucolic odours – the masochistic silence of nostalgia: Pitpalac! Pit-palac!

*

As for the fatuous cuckoos, who I hear have nested in many a grove and coppice, yes, even in urbanized areas, what can I say? Their solitude, proverbial, it turns out is simply a tall tale. (Their voices hoarse with lust – obese chanteuses!)

*

Solemn bird,
who are you
covetous
of my solitude?

Why keep being born,
to fatten yourself
on solitude?

“My blood –
the purple of solitude.
Out of the flames,
eternally for the flames,
into the flames . . . ”

*

Black seeds of nonsalvation . . .

“When she sees water of good omen
she runs off like a madwoman;
when she sees bad water with a stink
she muddies it and bends to drink.”

Never will you find your twin, oh solitary wing beating in the
unfathomed abyss of the sky! White wing . . .

*

And should you come, beating your immense wings (capacious white
heart, anima mundi), when the great blizzard pronounces its cyanotic verb, you will keep me from following. By the gate stands a willow tree, its leaves always stirred in soft motion. Maybe you will recognize that place. If you come, you will halt there. The sky is a deep blue-violet. No, it’s not out of mercy that you’ll come, but mere chance.

*

You will find a sick eagle, a poor dying bird.