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

Reused Roman stone in nave and chancel,
Pevsner writes, and much of south aisle rebuilt
1886. Chancel arches wide
and Early English. Fine sedilia.
Font (octagonal, ornate) shows flowers,
and angels underneath, two missing noses.
Ouside restoration’s overdone, he thinks,
as if atonement for the sins of sun and frost:

no fooling such a searching eye about
how much a block of stone can hide. Inside,
too, he traces lowered floors, works out
where doorways led and wonders whether
hollow-chamfered transverse arches were
the wisest choice. Clee, Claxby, Claxby
Pluckacre and Claypole, Claythorpe, Cleethorpes,
Legbourne, Legsby, Lincoln’s long perambulations:

Lincolnshire’s North Sea-aired naves, chancels, transepts,
pointed-trefoiled tomb-recesses, stiff-leaf knobs
and quadripartite vaults are noted down, with
halls and clock towers, schools and railway stations
part-way from antiquity to where we
are (or were when he stopped noting down).
It seems no stone or gold or wood’s left out, but,
like the scallop worn from every chancel step,

the spaces everywhere define themselves:
the gap, for instance, in the holly hedge
along St Faith’s south boundary, that Dick trimmed
as a short-cut from his bonfire patch to climb
the tower and wind the clock, and toll the bell
for funerals - the gap four muddy-trousered
bearers humped his coffin through that Friday
someone else was found to toll the bell;

the places under slabs the cars park on
that aconites turned yellow every spring,
and that damp cavern in the yews they sawed
the roof off so the lovers lost their nest
and ghosts kids said were chained up there flew out.
Pevsner lists leaved capitals and two brass plates
from 1430-odd, but couldn’t
have a clue that what was also worth a note

was who threw Psalters from the battlements
while Mrs Steed was hoovering the mats;
why John Ward Wood, whose tombstone’s cock-eyed in
the sandy soil the rabbits dig and pile,
was laid one August day to rest right on
the far side by himself; the Manor window where
the lads took trembling turns to gape in when
mad Mavis took her skirts off by the fire.

It’s not to say he should have had: that would
be another book, dust covered, copyrighted,
with a glossary of terms to clarify
how each step forward paved a way, or
blocked it, for the next (though most things ended up
the best for someone - and the ones things
ended worse for learned to live with it), but
that’s no gazetteer. Here’s Clixby (part-restored).