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

An opinionated being is a human with no feeling - How can I prove that,
                                                                                                  admit
that I can't, You would if I could, but we shan't.
Reflectional symmetry showcased in example setting fountains, sporting
                                                                                               tall tales
to whoever spares time to listen - told at an unrecallable early age to stay
                                                                                                    away
from baptised gravedigger’s cemetery, With private ceremony in full swing -
Baptised in glistening waters then christened, If you’re coming alone it’s
                                                                                                    best
a partner if you bring,
for untold reason locked behind unlockable gates of green - I was seen
with mates going through secret side entrance; but we weren’t stopped to
                                                                                                    pay
We’re free to play on misleading morals, bombarding brain cells at
inconceivable incredible rate.
Attracted to devising pranks to scare living daylights out of departed,
out of hours of visiting - after dark shouts reduced to whispering
So we couldn’t be hounded out, but I knew we wouldn’t be anyway
no-one in their right mind would have gone there that day.
Unable to read very well in any case, but unreadable words made
already bad matters fearfully worse.
Dissolving headstones bearing strangers’ names falling at physics defying
                                                                                                 angles;
even if you saw it for yourself - I wouldn’t believe it if I saw it again.
Persuaded to assist trustworthy friends who obliged in twisting broken
                                                                                                   arm,
if I refused to be present there with them.
Silenced uncharacteristically as rolling suspended balls of wool draped
                                                                                          themselves
unnervingly over reassuring moon - as if to confirm that
someone knew what we were off to do.
Abandoned chapels resting in peace let light in, With smashed windows
muffling stark loudness of peace.
Random ringing in recently syringed ears led to theory that supernatural
force was present and worryingly working black magic; retold scary story
concerning dwarf of devilish man caught red-handed; flagging in intense
re-creation of claustrophobia - I guess you just had to be there
I experienced - All the better for it you would be if you were.
     Incomprehendable level of dodgy danger indecipherably engraved on
     taunting tombstones that stood a mouthful to read, if at lost time
     innocently eating.
     Names and dates a passing place that’s religiously avoided;
     We came to wait in fear for our short lives, transformed from
     happy-go-lucky ten year olds into something menacingly more morbid.
     Instilling crisp memories of hopeless nightmare, in which I didn’t feel
     myself at all - but I tell you now, I didn’t fee anyone else.
     All it was was fun and games,
     Afterall, we were only kids in this alienated world.
Sleepwalking zombies sheepishly shake hands as if they know you - I
recognise your face, but I’m afraid I can’t place it, on remembering
That day, I wonder what all electric like built-up fuss was all about -
Going in search of long lost ghost, coming to terrifying terms with
                                                                                       switchboard
Jammed doubts - single-mindedly returning for all the rightfully
wrong reasons, I wanted to prove to myself I wasn’t still scared,
and to overcome ever-present demons floating angelically in
possibly repossessed mind of mine.
Onward attentively closing pearly gates watching obsessively behind
                                                                                   unguarded back,
pursued powerlessly by haunting image of something I’ve not seen
                                                                                              before -
I’m a grown man who shouldn’t be scared of a silent graveyard.
But as silver sliver disappears, freezing cold excitement comes back;
Peeping through pin-prick slits in now boarded up holes in wailing wall;
Stained glass shrouded in pieces, on footstep stained floor - for whom
the bell once tolled it doesn’t ring anymore.
Lifetime lasting horror may justifiably let up when I’m one day laid to rest,
I suppose final request’s highlighted best explanation - All it is is
I’m frightened stiff of death; unless, of course, death really doesn’t
indicate premature end - Spare souls float eerily to place from which
we all came.
Lowered six feet under in custom made coffin I’m meant to be in,
forever late friend in this situation - It’s not a case of if, only when,
I’ll be unconvincingly walking around this miraculous meeting place once
                                                                                                    again,
Scaring their dying highlights from waving wig covered hair, beneath white
                                                                                                           silk
sheet as friendly ghost, to reassure basically people like me
pulseless medium’s not the be all and end all; as opposed to more
                                                                                             plausibly
popular belief, I get a cheap thrill of all together sinister night
from your fright.