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

I

At the time
                     he had the work begin
                                      the island was accessible
                               by small moveable bridges
                               bordered with docks and warehouses
You can still see the massive pier
                               where the lighthouse rose
                               (take the stairs which lead up to the floors
                               in front of the loggia flanked by an iron ladder)

                are conserved the artworks
                found in his garden:
                         the statue of a little girl
                               a dove held in her arms
                         a crab in green porphyry
                         a splinter of the Holy Spear
                         a fine collection of antefixes
                         Zeus entering Danaë's house
                              in the form of a cloud

He achieved gigantic works

Near the staircase which links the two rooms
                               the celebrated talking statue
                                      its fine clothing
                                      with a likeness of wet drapery

                 He wished the ground
                 to be of earth
                 from Calvary

Whilst the brambles had overrun the alleyways
                                      - dark cypresses
                                      parasol pines -

                  on the black glaze of the vases
                            whites
                            yellows
                            deep red
                                   some flowers
                   were freed from the vegetation masking them

There was a time          when
                                    on holy festivals
                                    two lions gushed
                                              the one, white wine
                                              the other, red

                          He was part of the group of talking statues

You can still see       the two side benches
                                reserved for the initiates

At the top of the great staircase
                                    (197 stone steps)
                            a sea-born aphrodite
                            was surrounded by the Hours
                                            whose feet
                                            brushed across the shingle
                                            of the beach

"They possess,
                             he wrote,
                                    something of
                                    that ancient poetry
                                             which places death
                                             alongside pleasure"

From 1515            he worked
                             surrounded by numerous assistants
                                       Quarries
                                       hydro-electric schemes
                                       paper mills
                                       chemical plants
                                       were his principal activities

From where he lives
                            (the staircase climbs towards a terrace)
                                   the view of the geometry
                                              is quite extraordinary

According to legend
                                   this is where
                                   the aqueduct brought water
                                             to the thermae

There used to be     a library
                               a roman statue
                                      her hand turned to the ground
                                      signifying that the idea
                                      has existence only in the material thing