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

                                                                  Dante: dig this!
In the three o’clock ward, complete
worlds jettisoned through
fragile space, reality
anaesthetised against
despair,
                 sounding the black notes only
very loud:
                 but don’t worry:
the dream police are here,
they are constant.

or.

In the battle zones, slow
piss of history running out from
a thousand broken helmets, damaged heads,
fingers screwed off
by final crescendoes
that never die:
                 but don’t worry:
the dream police are here,
they are constant,
they are wise.

or.

In fields of summer harmony
hearing the water lap ivy,
hearing the steel screetch of young
rabbits stretched by the hawk’s
slow murders, the
tambourines of trees,
and even honeysuckle forms poison:
                                                             but don’t worry:
the dream police are here,
they are constant,
they are wise,
they understand.

or.

At the drowning
of a very close friend
caught under ice
other skaters crowding round,
does he see you as he dies?
before the liquid film shows,
before the trailers of the next event?
BUT DO NOT WORRY
FOR THE DREAM POLICE ARE VERY NEAR:
they are constant,
     they are wise,
          they understand,
               they have divers abilities
                    and never despair.

                    The dream police
                    administrate the savage mirrors of existence
                    direct the spotlights of reproof,
                    licence the hubs that hurt, the valves that burn,
                         endorse
                              what
                                    is
                                          experienced and sworn and REAL:

STAND UP the man who says
they are consistently unwise
and fool and cheat
and fail to understand.
STAND UP; receive your sentence:

go round one more time.