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

Yes, we write poetry; what do you write?
And sometimes we read it between living and dreams,
and sometimes we find other people to read it to, and
sometimes we meet somebody who quotes back a line or two
from a life we left years ago, and sometimes there is a
line that races beyond our lives and catches us at stages.
Yes, we write it because it keeps coming, prompting, essential,
a wolf howl in the soul until we hunt down the impulse
and create the new thing; and what do you do? Where are
your secret fields and discovered pathways and wild toys?
Where are your voices from the wings and small rooms of the
imagination and other lives? Between the funerals of great
aunts and procession of gangsters a vision of lilacs. Between
the silence of Quaker meetings and the surges on football
terraces three nuns consuming ice cream. Between my
grandfather's sermons and the bishop's requests for jazz
an image of Elgar at the race track. And somewhere
between Mostar and Kosovo the mothers who sleep
beyond the dawn, the church bells, the sirens, the
roar of falling buildings, the scream of homes bleeding
to death, the silence of playgrounds. In Spain
the funeral party still makes its way through the
narrow streets with enormous wreaths and the women
with giant handbags. The priest waits for
them and the choirboys stare as the San Miguel
beer truck crashes into the coffin, into the wreaths,
into the handbags, into the prayers written in heads,
into the speeches, into the memories of gardens and family meals,
into the late afternoon sun like a blazing drum.