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

"God damn it, do you see that? That is what I call
painting, look -- he was the one to leave what he had
once put down alone, -- All the rest belongs to the
periwig-and-pigtail period."

I will hold my hand in this fire
to speak to her, I will stay in
the fire of this world long enough to
speak to her, I will place myself in
the hands of my own Covering Cherub to
speak to her, for I am not seeking to
marry her, but to speak to her,
deep in a mine, in the wall
I drill through, my speech to her is
my art, I can
be bent, I can double back, I can as
the beggar be bent backward heel to nape
in sleep, in the mine as they chip at her,
strike dead speak from her, dead spirals
In the night the stars hang out in sinister places
they put their heads together, I take Death to
where their heads are together, where the mother is
lost in His washing her free, Her I must speak to,
for she is my Covering Cherub, my wall &
my boring through, my wall and
almond-tree branch, I will hold to
this fire for 10 years, my hand in her
a Biblical motion, churned
chair, churning candle on churning chair,
chair churning in sky, in the room, in
what is dear, I place a candle on this bottom,
in the basement of maternal hold, I place it to blaze
cock up, where the stars hang out
sinister armchair, where the stars cock & claw,
where the claims churn, where my name
manure, my name Vincent is shared
peasant, mine, her ass hiked -- but
the desire to split it open is
to split open the extent of the known world!
I have been where others claim to have seen,
I have seen olives build Jerusalem blue mountains
pour back their love into this rec-writhe, this rec
tangular, this bone lay-mansion, I smolder
in the Rembrandt mansion of, where the fire I am in is
rouge, There is continuity, and there is this broken
rectangle, broken triangle, broken
single line -- I will hold my hand in this fire
I will speak to her as I know the world is but a glimpse
of the wall of my tunnel, almond-tree branch for the baby.
But life, life itself! for me! Hiked ass prehistoric
entrance, I do not answer the door because I
know Artaud knocks, I want to go into that ass
and paint, I want to use her organs and paint her
insides, to take her organs and use her blood to paint
her goosepimply coils, almond-tree branch for the baby,
almond-tree branch for me, rose, hollyhocks, zinnias, peonies,
pansies, carnations, gladioli, sunflowers,
dahlias, red poppies, cineraria, delphinium, aster,
lilacs, daisies & anemones, I came out of her cunt
I want to return through her ass, my Covering Cherub
pecks about in the yard, the chicken I am
bothers around with nothing, I can only paint
8 or 9 hours a day, the thrust I make is my Covering,
Winged Prick, my own angelic ghost, my semen
haunting my desire O my people, all people to paint
for you! To literally remake the world into a universe of
lilacs, daisies, cineraria, aster I came out of her cunt
I want to return through your stem, what is dead in
me is my Covering Cherub, This is what I paint
aster, aster why do you cover me? Why am I trapped
in the visual box of you and me? That you are the bottom of,
say, and I am the side, being trapped, cornered
in thought, and all those needies outside --
but her, her -- why have I damned my life giving
woman's soul to almond-tree branch, why have I sought
her, why sought to speak only to her, Only
that the buttock church, this rest from the storm was
stalagmited with the iron that breaks through in spring
through the earth, this iron my body needs
aster, phylox, this hollyhock, I needed to eat her ass
and my anguished famished jaws only
painted what unrolls in the lagoon.