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

‘I'm proud to say my poetry is only understood by that minority which is aware” “Aware? Aware
of what ?“ “Not of anything, stupid. Just aware”
(dialogue from Roger Corman’s ‘A BUCKET OF BLOOD’ 1959)

Yuri Gagarin’s head is in my refrigerator,
I hear the soft ripples of falling moons
and dancing in the streets of Islamabad

it’s 4:30 am, & I’m crawling up the walls
awaiting Marcel Duchamp’s e-mail and
imaginary 'phone calls from Saturn

I hear they’re whistling on the Headrow
and through the levels of Meadowhall,
clear on down to the new planet they’ve
discovered deep within the Earth’s core

it’s 4:45, & I feel the microwave
interacting with your bodyheat,
already it’s having a direct influence
on the force of gravity, and by now they’re
banning Mohammed from the Dancehall

somewhere between collateral damage
and fellatio, there’s music whirling like
fractels dancing on the edge of destruction,
and an optimism bleaker than despair

it’s 4:50, & I’m slipping away, like the light,
we’re going to the lake to steal a Sony TV
and a video, but instead I find a flyer, and
now this bankruptcy is numbing me,
carried by the propellant force of chaos
and prolonged like the echo of laughter

it’s 4:55, pianists are getting restless, laden
down with carrier bags of acid, broken glass
and revolution, Monica Lewinsky is in my fridge,
& now my dreams are impure with an
apprehension and loathing measured only
by the electro-magnetic wavelengths of light

I hear the soft impact of
Giacobinid meteors falling slowly
through the deluge in the ruins of Dubai,
it’s 4:59 am, and somewhere out there
there is a cat that looks like Elvis ...