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

SHOP DOORWAYS SHELTERING PEOPLE under rainclouds dark the street the pavements puddles shiny humps of cars buses swishing through the rain hurrying wet hair faces umbrellas along the streaming street

Above a disused shop - its dusty interior strewn with pink plastic limbs and torsos of tailors dummies - a large window without curtains, a dark room. In the window there stands a young man looking down into the street below. He has a narrow white face, cleanshaven, and shiny black hair brushed straight back, though a black ‘wing’ of hair hangs down over his left cheek. He is slimly built and is wearing a white shirt and a blue bow tie and, supported by braces, black trousers just visible above the window sill. The expression on his face seems to be one of vacancy, or even boredom. The dark room behind him, he stands, quite still, looking down into the street below.

shop doorways clogged with people waiting for the rain to stop and others running through the torrent a gang of workmen from a betting shop the shiny humps of traffic swishing splashing old woman stick and straggling plastic rain hat raincoat carrying a lidded wicker basket that meeows in the rain on the pavement a lady’s white glove a tall blind man white stick black glasses standing in a doorway oppo site the empty shop

In the dark window over the empty shop the young man stands, holding a handkerchief to his eyes. Weeping perhaps, perhaps not. His teeth are bared as in a grin. No-one sees him. No-one looks up
from the street below.

people dash from doorways to a bus two priests arm in arm they stride beneath the one umbrella swishing traffic people rushing pushing a childless pushchair a ragged skeletal girl with mudsplashed legs a car door opens and into a hardware shop a man with long white hair rainflattened sodden on the pavement a lady’ s white glove the blind man very tall and still white stick black glasses in the doorway opposite the empty shop

In the dark window the young man stands, his eyes cast downward at a white bundle he holds under his left arm, a great white bird, a swan, his right hand supporting its seemingly lifeless neck and head.

a tall unhappylooking woman leads a poodle stops at every post she jerks the lead her lurid painted face beneath a clear umbrella arm in arm the two priests stride a man his hair obscured by bandages three giggling schoolgirls lank wet hair smiling sombre sad and serious people sheltering rushing shuffling waddling old grey woman with the wicker basket that meeows boy kicking at a kerbside puddle still the white stick blind man spectacles black in his doorway

In the window the young man stands, a handkerchief held to his eyes. His lips are moving, murmuring perhaps, but no-one hears, no-one looks up from the street below.

rain to a drizzle people emerging from shop doorways eyes to the sky arm In arm the two priests turn the corner striding from the hardware shop the white-haired man whistling carrying a sheet of frosted glass into his car splashed puddlekicking boy old woman with meeowing basket drags her tired feet along on the pavement a lady’s white glove lost forgotten the blind man white stick spectacles black

Now the young man stands with his back to the window, a white shape against the dismal darkness of that room.

gleam pavements watery sunlight sky blue between the opening clouds into the street the people from their shelters hurry away

gone the old woman with her wicker basket puddlekicking boy startled by his mother suddenly appears and scolds him he looks up and sees and points to the white shape in that dark window but his mother not even a glance she hurries him off the street quite deserted pavements wet and gleaming a lady’s white glove the blind man from his doorway moves the sunlight flashing on his glasses and a smile for a moment on his lipe

And opposite, above a disused shop - its dusty interior strewn with pink plastic limbs and torsos of tailors dummies - a large window without curtains, and beyond it, a dark room.

tapping white stick blind man sunlight flashing on his round black glasses hesitatingly he walks to the corner stops and taps and turns walks on and is gone from the street wet and gleaming on the sunlit pavement a lady’s white glove

Printed Ephemera