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

Look; we will go out into the real day
and tread beneath a real sky the pathway
between the chapel and the hedges fixed in winter.
You have not seen the sun since November
and today we will open the windows of your imagination
and try a few games and sing a little.
Later Mr Elgar will come and those of you who are
still alive will raise music. It will not be easy,
it is never easy between dead birds and letters that
never arrive and having to put on other people’s clothes.
Ah yes; the swing. Go on; try it. It will never
take you up to God but indeed an angel might
see you, see us here in our game, our play space,
this massive yard within a dead garden set in history.
Some of us are running between an idea of summer
and an ancient birthday party. When you stop for breath
you will hear your parents calling the dog and somebody
will carry a baby. The baby is always here. The
mother and father are always near. The bell from
the chapel is about to proclaim again and the God
will come in from the garden and listen to our whispers.
The God would like one of us to say something to
amaze Him. Instead we will describe our dreams
and demand forgiveness and some of the patients will
pee in the pews again. This always happens.
Smell of wood and ancient dust, moths
and hidden howls and the sermons that
never made it. Stench of dead robins.
And I can see Richard Thomas at it again.
He stands on the pew and rolls his mouth
round some words that he wants God to hear.
Words such as “help” and “what for?” and then
that sweeping wing-fall gesture before he
leaps down the aisle and places his pebble on
the altar; his token, his gift, his toy. Amen.