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

Tell me about yourself, I’ve never liked that question,
the real you, not the myth, shoe-shine, spin.
Which way shall I go? There’s so many answers,
so here’s the facts, the simple facts as I tell them –

Height, 6’ 2”, once uncurled from the sofa
Weight, 23 Christmas puddings or a large flock of starlings
Starsign, Tesco, conjunction House of Fraser
Religion, Born-again virgin, with outside bog

Food, 17,010 hot dinners, at roughly one a day,
4,500 in a nosebag in front of the TV,
8,200, mixed, with friends, family and/or Lincolnshire sausages, 4,310, more intense, with love and best gravy by my Mum

(of course this doesn’t include 810 slipped-in
fried egg sarnies, 1,500 quick apple crumbles for comfort).
What else? About 140 haircuts, some I enjoyed,
180 pairs of shoes, mostly desert boots, sandals, slippers,

6 or 7 years, total time of drudge, sludge, donkey work,
socks on and off, I make it 34,300 rucklings,
my God! the patience, about 1,600 poems, mostly daft,
and laughs, more laughs than socks off, thank the Lord,

and other things I haven’t counted, trees climbed,
times in love (= less than haircuts enjoyed, more than suits bought),
hospital visits, funerals, games of Scrabble
(I think the regular pleasures come to 56,810,

that’s shower, shit, shag, shave all counted together)
and the Biggies, maybe 87 Golden Halo moments
– kisses, revelations, life understood etcetera,
cloudscapes stared at, several years and more,

then my own 2 children, much loved, with 2
different mothers, cars on fire, 1, very exciting,
and 16,229 moments when my heart
skipped off the edge of the pavement

into the unknowable, like the night-life of stars,
misty, dark, uncountable, stuff I couldn’t reckon with
for one reason or another, and quite often
it was another.