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

SITUATED, AS NOW, AT the thin end of a new day - what gives? After sex, sleep is the tunnel inevitable - short cut to the greater part of what is, in this case, Wednesday ... dive in ...

9 hrs.

... and the morning’s a sponge. My nicotine past flashes foul in my
waking mouth. I pour coffee on the sponge and there is no breakfast. A letter from a bigot ...

2 hrs.

… a friend who’s read my novel’s come and gone, left me a written
crit. (is a teacher). And Kay back from the unemployment, “met
Mostyn... do more recording tomorrow ...“ (her new 12-string).
We get bread and eggs digested. Mrs. Bessemer believes that her
husband’s aunt has been trying to poison her (TV) ... and cigarette
and cigarette and cigarette etc. ...

4 hrs.

... 17 parcels to the P.O. - while Kay (back in bed) reads ‘A
Confederate General from Big Sur’ (Richard Brautigan) - and I start to sweat in the close and spongy air (low cloud wraps every sound in brown silence/licks a stamp/there are 17 sounds). So I’m hot out
there and stand damp in the grocer’s and next to the beautiful black
girl (with 2 kids) and am armfilled with milk/eggs/onions/cheese, etc.
and wondering if I’ve started to smell. And then back home to here
and now, forgot to get the 3 pen drawings duplicated ...

5 mins.

... coffee (white. 1 sugar). And I think, who is this wind that goes
ssshhh into the delicate green ears of my tall and garden tree? And
drives the herd of cloud ever on to blue pastures new? ... and there
is a fly in the room - we 2 sharing the same closed air/bricked space/
books and furniture, except he is Illiterate with 6 legs and I am huge/
have no wings. Both my cacti are dying. Kay finishes the book, gets
up, comes into the room ...

8 hrs.

... have just completed a 4th pen drawing - the 4 and this piece are
for ‘Oasis’, a London mag.; Debbie, Mick, Shirls and John round
earlier. Dave rang again. Gareth Owen rang - wants Kay and me for
an October gig, also Pete Morgan’s phone no. which I don’t have.
Saleem’s Curry House is a mucky cafe down the Ladypool Road.
Debbie, Kay and I ate our fill for £1.85 the lot. Saleem has this photo of a Pakistani who’s 7ft. 9in. tall. ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ is The Pink Floyd’s finest L. P. - left Debbie 1/2-way through side 2 and came home. After 2 weeks of travelling/gigs/hectic socialising etc. (Birmingham - Edinburgh - Bradford - Birmingham) the day’s been easy/life’s good and I love Kay. Midnight slips by on tiptoe. Wonder what letters tomorrow? 7ft. 9in.