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

A tribute to Matisse who in his 80s worked
more with cut-outs than painting directly on to canvas

(I)

At Eighty

Bed-bound or wheel-chaired, the artist
works his delicate scissors. Spirit flames
and sparks as he snips the painted pieces,
curves and angles, sticks, repositions,
plays with the setting of fluid blue on white.

His girl is cut from sea and sky.
Tropical midday blue flows unclouded
in the arching wave of breasts, curled thighs,
soft roll of neck and sweeping spine—
fruits rounded by exotic light.

Like a glass-cutter he probes the heart of
flux and form, carves deep into the quick
of colour, chasing the sapphire’s hidden flash.

(II)

Studies for the Blue Nude

What is she doing, the blue lady?
Nymph, mermaid, yogi, dancer,
she is flowing thigh, curled leg,
spheres of breast and rounded neck,
trail of soft arm circling a caress.

Another elbow juts in sharper angle
as, jigsawed, bits of bliss fall into place.
The channel of her blue vagina
is cut and penetrated by liquid white,
the holy intersection of flow and form.

(III)

The Creation Dance

Is this Eve sitting bent-kneed, showered by apples?
Adam senses the female curves mirrored
behind him: open legs, rounded breasts, circling spine,

the feminine flow of form, liquid in primary blue.
She reaches back, leaning into the snake-tongued,
monkey-man thrust of the first creation dance.

They are alpha and omega, penetration and surrender,
sea and sky. The curve of falling apples is playful,
tempting, a reminder of what has come between them.