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

There is talk of a ceasefire but the poet will hear none of it. If a lasting peace in that distant, barbaric land is really on the cards, he’s damned if it will happen until his poem is complete. Only this morning, he felt another surge of inspiration. Images inundate his mind: a bomber plane budding with engines; a wounded man whose guts jut out like the service shafts of the Pompidou Centre...

His will be the war poem to end all war poems. A sure-fire competition winner. Now suddenly this premature bullshit about peace: intermediaries, UN envoys, neutral venues, exploratory talks. How can they do this to his poem, before it’s had a chance to speak its lines, to influence the outcome of the war? Can the TV bulletins of scorched gables, camps of toothless refugees, famished children – the very scenes that fire his poem with indignation – not hold out for a short while more?

But there’s hope yet. Negotiations may collapse. Hardline factions may refuse to sign up to the deal. Breakaway groups may form. He feels a little steadier. He will make haste to knock the poem into final shape. He will live to see its gold words glitter, an eternal flame, in the marble columns of a solemn war memorial. Presidents will cite the opening stanza – perhaps misquoting slightly – on commemoration days.

He reaches for a cigarette, paces his balcony at the sylvan writers’ retreat. His morale is on the rise. He knows in his bones the war will – must – go on.