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

There’s loss in the Atlantic sky,
Smoking her course from sea to sea,
Whitening an absence, till the eye
Aches dazed above the mainmast tree.
     The fuchsia shakes her lanterns out;
     The stiffening winds must go about.

Green breakers pile across the moor
Whose frayed horizons ebb and flow;
Grass hisses where the garden floor
Pulls to a wicked undertow.
     A ragged Admiral of the Red
     Beats up and down the flowerbed.

Granite, unmoving and unmoved,
Rides rough-shod our peninsular
Where curlews wait to be reproved
And petals of a hedge-rose star
     The beaten path. Uncoloured rain
     Rattles her shrouds upon the pane.

Beyond the ledges of the foam
A dog seal sways an oilskin head;
The Carracks worked old luggers home,
Black rock commemorates their dead.
     The sea shouts nothing, and the shores
     Break to a tumult of applause.

But mildewed on the parlour wall,
The Thomas Coutts, East Indiaman,
Enters Bombay. Her mainsail haul
Swells to the light. A rajah sun
     Accepts her flying ribbon still,
     Though bracken darkens on the hill.

A peg-leg cricket limps the floor.
See, China Poll and Jack link hands.
Blown long ago on a lee-shore,
His hour-glass run on to the sands,
     He bids her wipe her eye, for soft,
     A cherub watches from aloft

Who knows our hulk is anchored fast,
Though timbers fret in their decline.
The cattle heads are overcast;
The gutter shakes her glittering line.
     Rage at the door. Winds twist and drown.
     We founder as the glass goes down.