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

1.

Kan writes: "No more sky!
White vertical walls of cloud
are my fifth season.

"Age is where I hide.
In thickets of paper words
I pen 'Osaka'.

"No-one knows me here;
this indifferent city
is a cape and mask

"making me pilgrim,
bowed into simple journeys
to buy pens, brushes;

"always out alone,
taking my words in baskets,
packed under fresh carp,

"so that others see
simply a shadow with food."
They say: 'It is Kan.'

"Then the letter came,
an unknown nephew asking:
'Visit us through clouds.'

"I kept it hidden,
like a landed koi from storks.
I will not answer."

2.

Sone writes: "Dear Princess
Uncle is coming quite soon,
he will like England."

3.

I pack in darkness,
the suit, the bullet I kept;
I wear the headband.

4.

Sun on wings again,
fuel stench, dawn sky shuddering,
tall, with boiling clouds;

in geese formation
we take autumn to winter,
watch ships slide like slugs.

Firing begins, fire
snatches at our squadron, makes
so many red deaths.

One by one they dive,
burst open on decks or sea,
float as red, black wreathes.

Then Spring beckoned me.
I turned towards an island,
sea-bird cowering.

Sweat soaked my headband.
Ink ran red, black, scarred my face.
These words became wounds.

Silence, sacrifice,
my burning bird, its sun wings
plucked by fingered flame,

once fleet hawk, now prey,
now dove. Forever I mourn
on land, in shadows.

Later, in black years,
no-one asked me that question.
I never offered.

I received the watch,
a pension like the others.
I learned what time meant.

5.

Strangers took away
the bullet, fresh carp, noodles;
let words fly with me.

I ate, dreamed white, woke
over tablecloths, dreamed green,
woke over green sea,

found land green, like home,
except all words had grown strange:
men asked: "Name? Alien?"

6.

A young man bowed low,
said; "This too is an island."
Found me a slow train.

The morning showed me
striped fields, trees, towns, lakes waiting
for light after rain:

"Trees at their bleakest,
colours paling; a skimmed sky;
light at its leanest."

"Ripples of a field
foaming out of a plough's wake;
stiffen to brown spume."

7.

Sone writes: "Dear Princess,
Uncle is here, with baskets
full of fresh haiku."

8.

English are discreet.
They all say, looking away:
"A shadow; no past."

9.

Sone writes: "Dear Princess,
Uncle goes to language school
with the small children.

"Often he works late,
burning incense, painting words
he found among clouds.

"He writes in old ways
of fables, migrating birds,
years plucked out of air."

10.

"When grey geese fly North
I follow their arrow, send
peace when they return ."