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

This is my journey
Plotting a route on the map of days
Tracking, searching, stopping, turning
Through the maze of time and fear
I am meant to be
And I am here.

I am all here
Complex, variant.
I think, I move, I speak, I see, I feel
I am a fairytale
But I am real.

It came to me
This fragile thing
It smiled
A secret smile
It held
Some kind
Of promise

It reached
Inside
Tore the tissue of
My trembling self
Explored
The underbelly
Of my soul

Impatient for
The truth
Of what I felt
It stroked me with
A sigh, and deftly
Took me piece
By piece apart

The past
Had cracked
My image stumbled
Naked In the dark
It sought a

Narrow staircase
Thought only of escape

It held me
Sobbing
In its close embrace
And I could
Bear its touch
At last
To say:
Let love stay

The book is open
I begin to write
The words form into questions
Is this quite
What you expect to see?
Have you the right to challenge what is me?

What happened to you my sister
That has filled your eyes with pain?
What happened to you my sister
That has lined your face from strain?
What happened to you my sister
That has caused your eyes to dim?
What happened to you my sister
That makes you feel your life is grim?
What happened to you my sister
That your heart feels made from lead?
What happened to you my sister
That you wish that you were dead?
What happened to you my sister
That you want to run away?
What happened to you my sister
That you can’t face another day?
What happens to you my sister
Now the time has come to pass
What happens to you my sister
Lies within my looking glass.

I am the moon-woman
Cursed by tides
I wax and wane
I weep, I laugh, I hide
I show my face
While all is dark inside.

Loneliness, despair, destroying the light
Like an eclipse
Overwhelming darkness
Making your skin crawl with fear
Blackness growing all around
Making you mollusc-like
Withdrawing into the shell
You have made for yourself with your grief.
Hiding in your cell of sadness
No windows for comfort
No gap under the door
Blocking out the glimmer of light you yearn for.

Open your eyes
Let them become accustomed to the blackness
Surrounding you.
You will then start recognising shapes
Until, in time, all becomes clear again
The darkness becomes twilight
The dusk becomes dawn.
Then, before you know it
You are striding out into the warmth of sunshine.
Blinding light
Brightness that lifts your very being
Onto the higher plane called joy.

I have become
What I was meant to be
Strong as the sun
A river running free
The scent of Eden
In Eternity
A spider print
Upon your memory.

Beautiful Arachne
Just out of reach
The spinner that I am
Evades me
Scuttles into dark recesses
And betrays me

The deceiver that I am
Is not revealed
To the world
The weaver that I am
Recedes shyly
At the slightest touch

Where is the soul
The centre of me
Stretched taut
Inside a spiders web
Thread particle
I