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

I

This man never read books. He’d seen
What they could do to you. They provided
That false sense of security whisky
Gave you, a sense which divided

Your winnings by ten if it
Didn’t land you in jail. No. He couldn’t live
Without the threat of reality,
The repeated attempts it made to give

His own biography an epilogue. He’d
Shot pool across America since his ‘teens.
He’d been in cabaret before that.
He used to help shift the scenes

After the strip-tease. They had one set
In the jungle and another in a big cage
And then he would juggle billiard balls
For those who hadn’t gone backstage

To see what was left of the poor fat
Girls for them to enjoy. And after that phase
He knew all about the fronts of girls’
Bodies and also one or two ways

There were of softening them up
If you hadn’t got half a dime. In fact
This man never had time to read books,
He soon found he could have all he lacked

By shooting pool. He used to go to Arthur’s
Every day to practise and at night
Learnt how to hustle, which meant knowing
When you were safe and what to do in a tight

Corner if you didn’t want your thumbs
Broken. Act as if you owned the whole shop.
Get nice and drunk, cool as ice inside, then
Switch on the talent and watch them hop

Out with their empty money-satchels flapping
Under their coats all the way to the door.
But it wasn’t just the dollars that got him.
He’d never been King of anything before.

II

The way he felt was, anything could be great.
Bricklaying could be great if it built
Up something inside you, made you feel free.
And when he played pool he forgot his guilt

And why he was there and remembered instead
That he was Fast Eddie Felson and when
He had a cue in his hands, his arms were
Six feet long and he could show any hen-

Pecked, small-time billiard player what
The game was all about. He would slowly fit
The two parts of his cue together, then
Suddenly, Smash — and afterwards would sit

Back and watch their faces fall as the balls
Journeyed over the felt, directing one another
Into the designed pocket or position. It was
Like watching your destiny. There was no other

Player like Fast Eddie. He was doomed
It was no surprise to anyone. They all knew
Descent to be harder, feet blindly testing,
Than the upward climb, but only a few

Knew why he kept shooting all night
And all the next day, winning perhaps ten grand,
Only to drink his shots into oblivion
So as not to see it slip away like sand

Towards the evening, remorse arriving
In the morning like a bill. It was a compulsion
Which he had. To win until you lost was
Somehow more rewarding, an emotion

Taken from its simple preliminaries, through
To its natural fate. Not a sacrifice, an act
Like that of love, in which the sensual strokes
Of the game are superseded by the fact.