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

Town inviting town
        town of night light
    togetherness
and nature as humankind has made it
        town our home our undwelling
town our new primeval forest
        this loom-transformed hilltopped town
smiling to a hilltopped boy dipping
        dizzily to the dirty river and up
up in a weepless sweep to the dirty lovely town

        Clean she says    I’ll have things clean
no slattern or sloven you'll clean to my satisfaction
           and I’ll be satisfied
paid to satisfaction
      and proud to pay
           this my man see him
brains he has oh brains enough for MAs PhDs
      they should put it in a bottle
           his brain
in that formaldewhatsit
      for posterity a brain like that
           but like a sullen bitch
opportunity turned him down
     he could’ve been oh anything
           like my children will
     you’ll see
           I’ll have them grammared proven worthy
I’ll have them prove me
     and I’ll have cleanliness
           house as spotless as a convent’s linen
he’ll pay he’ll earn
     what I say
            he’s regional
not everyone gets so high
                     regional in sales
       that’s brains that got him there
           my youngest’s slow it’s true
it’s not the genes
       I blame the midwife
                     low oxygen   at birth
                             an accident that boy
           in every way
       an accident
           conceived in beer and oh be buggered
                                  not in the family bred
                      not us
                            not proof of our unworth

        an accident
               a speck of dust that won’t wipe clean
                           my son an accusation
              as if my womb was made for failure
                    oh had I known
                I would have drowned him quietly in the night
                                     new born
                    head in a full bucket
                            gurgling kicking like a kitten in a sack
         then silence
                    and me no shamed veins
         no heart to beat a lifetime’s disappointment
                            but here
                    clean away from the dirty town
                                     clean free of calumny
         and clean

   How did the dirty town-boy come to the clean clean suburb?
                    O is nothing safe nor sacred!
        And 1955 his dockside dad ten years demobbed
                    got money as the poor always do
   by graft or gift or luck
                      chance chucked the terraced urchin’s chin
         lifted him clean from the mean and treeless streets
   into this paradise of space and grass
                     into this hell of snobs
         and she clean and town-free had a son his age
   mismatch of the take-as-it-comes back-alley-kid
and the unloved prove-me-worthy cup-on-the-mantelpiece scion
                     and in that clash of class and attitude
   ignored for friendship’s sake
                           (for what child will freeze a friend
             if lonely playlessness like dead eternity
                    is else)
       a had-its-day past met a breech birth future
             on a hill made monied
                    by the dirty work of the lovely dirty town

                           And her man was an insurance man
              he knew the fine print and the patter
                                    how to cover your wife
(but all he would have covered his own wife with was earth)
                    your life your death
               your ill health and your good health
your children and your wealth and your children’s wealth
               and your children’s children’s wealth
                               your house its contents
               and the contents of its contents
                    insured against loss and perdition
         insured to hell
               like a prayer to heaven
                              and heaven was a woman half his age
         who had a leisure in her way and voice
                    that calmed his blood
               and cooled the fever in his head

                              the pain that rose from his tightened neck
   when her sharp voice
                like a jagged-toothed circular saw
         whirred through his nerves
                when her will to argument
    sent a million volts arrowing through his arteries
the poor trapped bird of his heart flapping for release
                              one policy he should have taken out
                against a bitter woman
  so sweet the spent-away hours
                       even the working day
    but oh the loving night
         April sun on the February snow of his iglooed marriage
                 this primrose in the brambles
this sip of water in the desert’s midday parch

                             how did she know

          what she said was she just knew
the quiet in him
          his blood’s slow fuse at her goading command
( his hard yet hard enough
                             and in her when she’d bid
          perfunctory   detached
                 unminded)
         and found them one afternoon
her laser-guided viciousness leading
                 from pub to pub
         cafe table to sea-front bench
                        together like a simple pair of lovers
as if her bed unhusbanded and his unwifed

                       We’ll move

         He had to leave
to stand one last happiness with her
             on the flat shore
          by the distant quiet sea
                       one last peak of heart’s-peace
before the flat desert of lovelessness
          encircled him
                as far as hope could see
and all he would gaze on
          the dry unf lowered landscape
                blown over by the dust-stirring winds
of blank recrimination