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

Emptiness in giant fistfuls descends from out this bleak mind
To flow deeply upon this bough-black forest.
Revealing space as speckled as a sparrow's egg
Thriving beneath the heavy pall of this leafy ululation,

Such a terror stills the sleepers and forms a far more fervent
                                                                                   peace
Chasing from their hearts the freeze of winter sunlit scenes
Whilst the ice-flecked stones crack and break
And snowdrifts bury the slow and swift paths.

Nocturnal feral eyes, hungry eyes, can be persuaded here
To join this tremulous sleep when feet such as these pass
                                                                                   through,
Neither hunted nor creature-victim, neither of Man nor nature
And yet in definite stealth these cursed feet tread. As though
                                                                                   afraid.

Ice and heat become as one to the numb rim-world walker,
The isolated mariner in Sargasso-bound starvation.
The harried of God, the murderer without penance or salvation,
Knowing of no gift which might bear the weight of this curse

In agony of a deathless life which no sky or beast can learn
There is no escape over an earth which knows him not
And alone under this frozen and unfeeling inky canopy,
Where even wild beasts dare not approach,

In a clearing of burning silver the exile bewails his Godless
                                                                                   solitude.
But look up. Just look up. Listen. There are the stars . . .