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

      celebrated in Nottingham,
      the home of John Player,
      patron saint of Self Destruction;
      and of DH Lawrence, of Romantic Eroticism.

      9 days of festival.

      I was in Nairobi but originally I was in Gujarat.

     The beat is hypnotic the voices and sounds of women and men singing and dancing together oh!!! The driving thrusting beat impels them to dance & sing and then dance & sing even more: religion and sex in equal measure.

     But now I am in Nottingham.

     Nottingham has two football teams: Notts County (the oldest professional football club in the League) and Nottingham (never Notts) Forest.

      Judging by what she was wearing on the catwalk this evening,  
      tarpaulins are in.
      It’s the Military Look, quite possibly a reference to
      Afghanistan.
      I wouldn’t have the faintest idea where that is.
     No surprise there, because you hardly ever know where
     YOU are.
     Yes, I do - we’re in Derby.
     Nottingham actually.
     Whoops.

     There is one county cricket club, who play at Trent Bridge.

       Later she opens the front door wide and greets him with:
       Slip out of those wet things
       And into a dry martini.
       I’ll cook us steak with onion rings -
      And we’ll listen to some Tartini.*
      Yes, I know he’s been a long-time dead.
      If you’re bored, we can always go to bed.

      Aren’t the costumes simply wonderful!
      Better than on any catwalk.

                                                
      The legendary home of Robin Hood, or at least of his enemy (The Sheriff) Nottingham has one of the oldest pubs in the world, The Trip to Jerusalem. Crusaders would stop off here for a last pint before joining the latest expedition to what is still
euphemistically called The Holy Land.  There they faced the armies of their enemy, Saladin (1138-1193). Saladin was in fact Kurdish, and in 1191 was finally defeated by his adversary, Richard The First (1157-1199) (known as The Lionheart).

      In the 1950s, we would play football at West Bridgford.

      I was in Gujarat & Nairobi before that; but now I am in -

 The Trent was very full. It swept silent and insidious under the bridge, travelling in a soft body. There had been a great deal of rain.

     - Nottingham, I’m happy here.

      Laughing, she looked down into his eyes. Then she leaped. Her breast came against his; he held her, and covered her face with kisses.

      We would get off the coach and go straight to the dressing rooms and get changed. Every time any player opened or closed the locker doors there was an arctic draught. Once out on the pitch we were hobbling up and down permafrost. It was a wonder nobody
broke an ankle or the Trent wasn’t frozen over.

      The full, soft-sliding Trent, and water meadows dotted with
      small cattle.

      After the dinner in the waterside hotel,
      After the dancing and drinking and we’d gone up
      To our room, the first we’d shared, you were first in bed.
      You took a novel with you and began to read.
      When I came in from the shower you gave a yell
      And sat up, naked to the waist, both hands cupped.

      I love this festival almost as much as Robin loved Marian or Paul Morel loved Clara Radford; or come to think of it, almost as much as I love - Hell, no, I’ll tell you later in private.

      2 days of festival
      to go.