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

The first day I came here
The lady introduced me to the residents
Showed me my room.  A beautiful room
Second floor.  My room.  A wonderful room.
 
The manager was quiet.
A medicine room where they hand out medi-cines.
A beautiful kitchen, full of cups,
My room.  From there I could see the sky.
 
Usually at nights we handed in
We had good dinner, hot good dinner
Sometimes spaghetti, all kinds of food
Sausages, roast potatoes
In my room I wrote and wrote.
 
Most of the time we watched television
The News, Coronation Street, East Enders, 
Emmerdale Farm.  
Mostly films on television.  And watched the news
Again watching television, football games
Programmes of all different kinds
Some of the characters here were tough
They treated me badly.
 
Again television.  Watching television
Music group.  And football games
The news and the news
Mostly in this place I became paranoid
And paranoid again
Again the news on television.  
All kinds of sports shows and so on
Football games, BBC news and all kinds of films
All kinds of movies
And I became paranoid
I became unhappy and full of fear.
 
I looked from my room outside, read a bit
And needed to lay in my bed at night
And have medicine to sleep at night
Such as it is.  My room was beautiful
Session of art work
But the people here treated me badly
And made me suffer.  At night I slept very heavily
Woke up and had cigarettes
Plenty of cigarettes
Movies of all kinds on television
And most of the people, the staff, I feared them.
 
Some of the staff
They treated me badly
And I had to have a shower and a shave
Problems with laundry
And they forced me to have a shower.
I could see the clouds from my room
Full cloudy skies.  Such is life.
The others preferred me not to talk to them
And be quiet with them
If possible don’t talk to us at all
We prefer you to be quiet
They treated me badly, picked on me.

Television, mostly the news
Money came for me, ten quid
The football games on television
Sometimes my brother's telephone calls
Such as it is.

Most of the people here I feared
I feared them like hell
Such as it is
Sometimes programmes on television
Theatrical writing, gardening programmes
Smoking heavily and smoking heavily
Chain smoking
Buying cigarettes at the nearest grocery shop
All the time smoking, chain smoking
Such as it was, the cloudy sky.

We had a lot of canal trips and boat trips
Went to a lot of movies
Again television, the news BBC 1.
All the time news on television

In my room I wrote a lot, a lot
Created wonderful pieces of writing.
Created a novel.
Again smoking
Again television
Again art work again
Smoking heavily
As time goes on

Characters, all people here
I feared them. All of them I feared
Here a place for us
A place for us, such as it is
All the characters here I visited were unfriendly.

Art groups and art groups and creative writing
And again television programmes
The news and the news and the news.