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

Up-stream

We are about to hit the pavement running
we are about to raise ourselves Lazarus like
about to stand in a recess under an awning
about to wear green and diamante up to the navel.
About to make Muswell Hill the stuff of legends.
We are about to get up and leave together
slamming out past pale amazed companions
about to walk up-stream against the tide
the very tide of our history. About to become
temporarily temporarily God glamorous
about to acquire more days for this praise singing
than we ever had back at the beginning
this knowledge not even visceral
not even in the vestigial stem cells
where lizards remember they were fishes
but core black.
Stump hungry.
Vexed.

Canal bank

That night in the Waterman’s
we divide the world
between the boat dwellers
and the people of the floating city
of all the possible divisions
this one the fairest and most equitable
we discuss the good uses of wood and metal
the reed treachery of depth
we discuss the fire and the air people
and our baffled courtship of them
at our backs the canal
and the restless Fair Rosamund
the backwash of the moorhen’s little river stitches
and swans breeding up to their necks in effluent
the parting glass is on the jukebox
the Waterboys risen up and decanted into it
and swans slip out from the black
like lovers outing themselves at a wedding
like the boys we saw that braved the multitude
to walk hand in hand at the opera in the interval
and thought then as I do still this is what
they are good for these romance languages
the hop over the rubicon the mixed marriage
of eggs and breakages the flare from the marginal
right out where branches hold themselves unbearable. 

Estuary

all tongues but this may be governable
along the embankment
a wraith like municipal glitter
suicide lamps
small lives
big pictures
at Vauxhall we had our bear gardens
the bears that bated one another
everything drowns in this
insatiable riverality
dogs bark
gas holders answer back in rhythm
there’s Sheppey and there’s Thanet
and there’s the drab
pipe laden coast of Kent
everything passes into it
everything recants
even the intercourse of the bridges
all tongues may be governable
but this
salt cut
moon hitched
last ditch
inundated
rinse