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

The ornate facade of Bombay’s Railway Station
In the year of nineteen forty-five,
Thronged with sweaty bodies in blotchy’ whites and purples.
With assortments of Khakis and mottled jungle greens
I sit on a latticed wooden bench in the corner,
Oppressed by the heat and lonely
In the company of unknown languages,
Crushed by a melee of passengers
And unfamiliar smells, superheated steam and oil
Propelling an iron-bellied relic of the British Raj
On a four day journey across the miraged plains
Of India; a land of piquant spices, poverty and princes.
Between the shrouds of white cloth,
My companions smile and nod approvingly
At my presence, strangely respecting an intrusion
Into their world of mysticism, dhotis and vindaloos.
Opposite, a holy man sits with legs crossed
Swaying to the rhythm of the train
An unbalanced starched linen statue,
His rimless glasses and balding head
Glisten with droplets of sweat as he arrows his prayers
To the heavens, like a disciple of Mahatma.
The train speeds into the past,
Through villages of mud wattle and cow dung,
Fluid fields of paddy, where women carry
Pitchers of water on ram-rod heads.
A colony of grey baboons swing through scraggy
Brush of sharp scree and tufted grasses,
Against the bleached stones of a river.
White minarets of mosques and temples
Standing fingers of icing sugar cakes,
A betel nut chewing passenger yawns
Red mouthed like an eastern vampire,
The train is weary of its load,
Three and a half sunsets expended,
Eves, nose and ears have lost the urge
To function, as we begin to run out of rails
At a terminus of wonder. Agra and
The Taj Mahal.