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

I am woman.
I was born in a Victorian house which I in turn
became
By the time
I figured it out, I had already turned into a hotel.

The hotel I am is sometimes alongside an ocean
City lights behind the hotel I am are galaxies
In the garage of the hotel I am apprehended by
family members who want me to play old tapes.
I cannot.
Upstairs, someone breaks down the door to one
of my rooms, stretches out on a sofa
and laughs.

      I am trying
      to imagine
      one life.

I slide backwards, back into a house, this one
is modern.
Venetian blinds blind me. I lift them, an ocean
has moved into the front yard.
What a view.

Standing on a thin strip of sand outside the house
I am, I see ships racing toward shore, grounding,

      running into each other,
      running into me.

Under a small arch of blue light ships surface and
dive like whales.
I stand wide eyed and search.

Behind me is an enormous dam. It is overflowing,
blue splashes dangerously down.

       For shelter,
       I go back inside.

There is a grizzly bear in the kitchen. Bars
set up half heartedly do not particularly contain it.
Leaving is an obvious necessity.

I become a pilgrim. In the wilderness is bedlam.
Masses wander thru forests going to judgement,
nuclear holocaust, for instance.

I quit being a pilgrim telling myself
‘Whatever is gnawing at my heart, pulling me forward
from inside and outside, what ever it is - it can’t be
that bad.’

         I am woman
         trying to imagine a path
         into the future,
         men are going there too.

I turn into an automobile. The mechanical parts are
scrambled.
The steering wheel is in the back seat.
I am a van. Doors fall open, slide closed, headlights
are blunt against darkness.

Downhill is a man in a neon fluorescent dome.
I get my driving parts together and go
but there is a red light, so I stop.
The man steps out of dream and tells me he is trying
to make the light work.
I fall in love.

Waves splash everyplace.

I drive.
Streets stretch flat along the ground but the landscape
keeps changing.
One street becomes all streets.
I am all women loving all men
That makes me a theater.

I have seven stories and flying drops.
My 4th floor is outdoors, wide open, like New Mexico,
a brown prairie.

It is surprising
to start out inside, then suddenly, to be outdoors —
exposed.

In the rest of the theater I am, backdrops fly up and
down at slant angles.
On the 2nd floor is an art exhibition from
the 21st Century.
Gigantic white tea cups and saucers are set out on
a plain stage.
They are a joke.

In the basement of the theater I am is an old man who
turns a wheel that controls all my sets.

          I am a woman
          shouting
          at the 21st Century!

I did not intend to be a theater.
I do not like the man in the basement who controls me.
I do not want to be a house, a hotel, a car.
I do not like being exposed!

I am amazed by the waves that are flooding my body
and spirit.
I do not like the grizzly bear in my kitchen.
There is chaos in the forest, a dam is spilling over
behind me.
Ships leap out of the water at me and the end of the world
is a distinct possibility.

I turn into a boat.
The waves are gigantic, the boat is just a few slats,
air rushes thru spaces between them. An old sailor
says he knows something important but to forget it.

I float on layers and layers of water like grass
billowing
in green light. I am shouting.

I am shouting!
I am full to the teeth
with ideas that don’t work, with containers that don’t
hold water and water is everyplace.

I turn into a construction site. Boards and slats lean
against plaster walls. Shingles hinge themselves to light
fixtures.
White tubes stick out of ceiling beams.
The attic is the only place I like.

It is a loft.
You can see out.
You can see stars thru holes in the roof.

I expand.
I start to fly, search,
searching, I am the air.

I am woman flying,
lean into the wind of the universe,
admit it.

I accelerate, become a path. There are signs.
They point to a ladder.

It is erratic, pegs swing wide,
it sways into starlight. It ought to work, but it doesn’t.
I look at it and say, ‘No way I’m being that damn ladder
again!’

I turn into
a gate.
Outside the sun shines.
Pavement stretches ahead, thru and behind me.
I drive a real car, the one I make payments on, into
the countryside.
I pass a dancing tree.

A souped up Volkswagon passes me going fast. The driver
holds up a sideways oval sign on a stick. It is red.
It say’s,
  S M I L E
so I do.

I laugh at these changes,
at this awkward metamorphosis, this disintegrated integration,
these torn apart forms, this confusion of scaffolding.

I am changing woman conjuring a future to turn into, men
are conjuring too.
I flow thru structures too dull for me into others so vast
I am lost.

I am like you. My soul unpeels slowly, folding in, reaching
out, into self, out to you.

You trust me the way you have to trust yourself.
I can slip into your imagination or into your arms.
We flow thru each other like the tide of a century turning.

It turns hard, but it turns.
It flows rough, in long waves, you can’t stop it.