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

I want to be a poet who plays with words
I want to be ice on the frozen lake
of your fall,
a slip in a subway
taking the greatest tube of them all,
beneath the sea
between two cities,
to kiss marble statues
in an explosion of atoms
beating and breaking for
one lost thing,
colder and colder until
nothing is cold.
On the line for a race
before the start flag flew
hot on the lip of your loving,
hooves and shoes grinding the earth
teeth tormenting the leaves they chew.
I am the suede of your swelled heart’s
blood push, red as the thunder
of somebody leaving,
rusted bolt when they never returned,
last screw of a screwed up century
wasn’t much for a final fling,
bending and bending
‘til the bent one snapped,
Christmas jigsaw didn’t have corners
nothing to cut,
no diversions,
leaving quickly by backdoors only,
echo of your foot fall up the garden path,
I wrote notes for poems
but not the script of our tangled disaster
not the teaching of your wicked ways.

Some great dog walker,
some knowledge of tides
turning their shores,
some beast howling
at the head of the bed
even though against a wall.
Great screamer of silence between
two cities, I whisper I love you
through hundreds of miles.
Waiting and waiting for a bullet to ring
to shoot through skull and bounce of brick
waiting for the click of a body bag collector
to exchange his charms for
three bags full,
waiting for a final dirty trick.

Our Father won’t listen
to the beckoning bridge
of our final prayer,
but please light a candle
when the lights go out,
there’ll be no paying
for souls to be saving
our feeble protestors
will make God lose his count.
My wax pot melted into
a storm of stains,
swans were swooning about his hair,
wasp on the lip of a coke can
daring to dance for sweetness of sugar
take a trip to a big black hole,
never to recover from
the taste of his lover,
when lights went out
he didn’t return,
moving his foot fall for
the chance of a life time
gambling a stripe
guessing his next move
but getting it wrong,
he stung for his supper
but his supper wouldn’t come.