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

Motor-cars, some of them armoured, were run through the streets
chasing the pedestrians. They ran them down and either left them
mangled on the ground or crushed them to death against the walls
of the houses. Steppenwolf, Hermann Hesse.

Every day I try to save you
from four-wheel drives and testosterone junkies
cutting through crossings, nipping the kerb.
The kind of thing that makes you oh so fierce
I want to shut my eyes and let the moment pass
so we can saunter on, hand in hand,
pretending the world loves a pedestrian
and life resides in gentle pavements.
We don’t pretend, of course, and I don’t save you.
- Intake of breath, the cold rush -
No gentle pat, a there, there.
This is fight unto the death:
your anger versus shit-load of metal
at forty miles an hour down a narrow road
and man do I look cool to the peasants
in my Porsche Carrera.
Who gives a fuck.

Well actually you do and you’re about to show them,
like Wyatt Earp and Emily Pankhurst.
But what about me?
I’m kneeling beside your broken body,
your blood spilled into my white sleeve
onto my breasts.
I won’t tell you it wasn’t worth it,
there isn’t time for that and anyway,
who knows what could change the world?

No. Come back to me, is what I say:
I will tell you all my secrets -
no journey slow enough I promise -
always on foot, without leaving
the country, the light we breathe.
I'm calling to you in my secret voice,
whispering now into your hair,
into the furrows on your neck,
your forehead, into your hands,
behind your knees.
Whispering in the dark we touch
I'm leaning closer to your eyes,
into the creases of your mouth,
your belly, I press the kiss
of long, slow thoroughfares.