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

Silence is a darkened room, where tapes unravel
And life plays a rerun.

Silence stretches like white sand,
It goes on for miles.
Immaculate seagulls pick a salt edge
My eyes sting,
And I raise a question -
Is there really a place
To which you’ve gone?

Silence is a darkened room
Where tapes unravel,
And life plays a rerun.

I gave you chrysanthemums.
Their heads cushions around which
I placed my palms.
Touching them like your head
Fragile as a shell
In the hospital bed that night.

The flowers were a small fire,
Reminding me of your garden,
The rusted shed,
The sound of you snipping stems,
Rustling newspaper and chrysanthemums.
Their smell, occasions of life and death
And mixtures of both, potent
As the lozenges
Which you kept in your pocket
In a tin, its lid
Now closed.

Silence is a darkened room,
Tapes unravel.

Silence goes on.
It’s like a yawn, I cannot break,
Or a stone, I will to speak.
I thought it answered me.
I heard a burble,
A sound like words,
And looking up saw a dazzling surge -
Water,
Water like a white tongue,
Lick a slope.
Evening sun caught one drop

Splintered light into seven
Like the seven deadly sins
That once severed every nerve
Till I was piece packed,
Remembering only,
It was dark for some time after that.

Now thinking of that Eden,
And the half lit corner of the garden
Where I first saw you.
Damp as avocado flesh
Dark as its skin, waiting.
I remember how desire came to flower
And dances on hot coals
Later, celebrations tense
And silence.

Life plays a rerun.

I cup water from this fall.
In my hand, it is harmless and contained,
Becomes a mirror,
The eye of a god who is not cruel
Only truthful.
Imposing itself for a short time
Like the footprints of a sandpiper
That come, brief as a day
And are soon gone,
Leaving the mud, smooth as marble again.

Silence has walled me
And is the darkened room
Where tapes unravel and life plays a rerun.
But a sorting occurs,
And tomorrow, has words.