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

                                       II
                                     1598

Through Codpiece Court, Pyssinge Alley, Deadman’s Yard,
With sound of trumpets, shawms and sackbutts,
Bagpipes cheeky under flailing feet, blowbladders farting,
‘A – rhee! A – rhee!’ and all the girls in the insignia’d houses
Lean their breasts out along Gropecuntelane.
Faces, streaked in the hot cressets’ light,
Burn red and black against the greasy posterns
And wands of mistletoe bob under the casements
Of the giggling burghers.
                                       ‘Here comes Duke Nakedarse
With Mistress Lupanar’; the garlanded phallophores
Poking into bedroom windows, Priapus
Pushed on a wheelbarrow by the handmaids of misrule.
Masks. Jiggling, harlequined thighs.
Men burst with tankards from The Dog and Bull.
‘I could do with doxy: know a good one?’
‘Petronelia Portejoy at Le Flower de Luce.
I’ve had the pleasure. And no messin’:
She’ll do it any way you like for not much extra charge’.
Blunder up Clink Liberty and along Maiden Lane,
Clients doing their easements in the gutter,
Dogs squabbling over bits of chicken bone.
Round Bankside. The wind hits like a phalanx.
Snow drives. The river rises in palisades of ice.
‘Petronella! Dolly! Open up! Our cocks are freezin’!’
A whiff of coal, of damp, of rancid woman,
And we’re in.

‘My name’s Margaret of Bermondsey.
When was I born? Don’t know.
Father? I never had none.
Mother? She taught me to sew.

She died one big ‘ot summer.
They pushed food under me door.
‘Course, after, no place to stay in.
So I took to combing the shore.

Rope, nails, coals, fat and driftwood.
You can sell ‘em for a farthing or two.
Nights I slept in barges or cowsheds
In my smock; never wore no shoes.

One day I was in Boro’ market
Picking for slops on the floor.
A man with a beard looked me over –
”Good ‘ips. D’you want to earn more

‘Un you’ve ever ever dreamt of ?”
It’s pretty disgustin’ at first –
The stench, the rooting and bad breath –
But the pimps and their fists are the worst.

Children? I did have a daughter.
She lasted two weeks; then she died.
I never knew what of. No milk came.
Yes, I’ve helped plenty get rid of a child.

God? They say he’s a good man.
If he is, he surely pays fair.
Leave here? Why? Where should I go to?
They got no room at The Bear.’

Petronella Portejoy rehooks her corset,
Washes herself in a little bloody bowl.
‘D’you hear the cold cracking in the rafters?
Tomorrow there’ll be ice panes to scrape
Off the horn. But now I’ve got small beer
And a bit o’ bacon to share with Flora.
Good night. Good night. Till next time.’

Along the frosted alleys creep the naked starvelings
Gingerly, like cats crossing a stream.
The night is desperate. On London’s gateways
The skulls’ teeth grin blue.