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

1.

shaggy palm:
brown old woman

stand in the rain.

2.

shell heaps

the pyramidal
nests of the

crocodile

& a pot of
curious workmanship

tumulus of
the chactaw.

3.

chunk pit

slave
bleeds

shadows

O

scream
for a
risen

God of
smoking mirrors

4.

thunder flash
of stone into

silver cross
on the neck of

one the Indians
called he who

now sleeps
with the fathers

in shell loam.

5.

the Chactaws
flat heads

Wordsworths
of ancient

Florida whose
songs brought

tears to the dark

slave girl
dusk of the

meeting house (viz:
Bartram)
“death when it

comes may be
joyful to brave

warriors surprised
in sleep.”

still falls

the seed
from that dry stem.

6.

let the tide
pull back, I say.

(we sit
on blanketed
rock)

let the tide
roll forward
           bellow bull lungs

your belly
near the rock

in your belly
our sleeping

child
in a spiral

of bone
fist in mouth

fears no waves
no gods with old men’s
                    knees

hears the distant sprawl
of language

cities of syntax/
dense wet prose

like newsprint
mutters to itself.

7.

storm
waves
struck the
pier
   & after--

beach cobbled
with cowries
/
warrens
evening
light

leaves
   us
the human question:
where put our feet
to shatter
lesser beauty?

then our night...

8.

sand
   pit

fish
   head

pull
   tab

pot
   sherd

chipped
   chert

rattle
   snake

egg
   pod

crab
   shell

full
   tide

moonlight

9.

palms bear      red air of
morning
on their leaves
           sea boom’s      distant
blue green ridge

risen to fall

fallen to rise

     some coiled creature
too vast to celebrate
in a young language
     my young language
not that of
Creeks
Chactaws
Muscogulges
     whose nouns scar
wetlands
north of here.

10.

    a small hand
turns
before us
    & the gulls
what do they know
    of this talking--
crescents
of meaning
cast up     the
    beached fish
dry in     the sun.