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

So the silt sways without movement.
Slipped into, sucked into the false flow static/dynamic confusion
A river of illusions.
On the muddy banks, feet dwelling freely,
I almost lived trustingly and let the flow go.

In every being stays the sleeper,
The apathetic dreamer.
Falling into polluted streams
Tormented by the calling
To go forward, move on,
Come swim in the mighty river.
Come drown your sorrows and yourself
For the tide is dying down.

Eclipse this misery then where will you be,
No torture to cling to, no cleaver of silver
To cut through the river
Of reflections, focus is faulting.
Oh holy circle of infinity.
A drowned smile is so much stronger
Than the falsity of friendliness
And the subversity of love.

A red halo tails me,
A wider self contaminating
Those I touch,

My failed socialism, my cloud
Of blood.

I slowed around the river bend,
So I grasped onto all the driftwood around.
I built a raft of my tragedies
And sailed it a shore.

But never assured by the dry land,
The ease of warm breeze,
I felt myself flowing without pressure
I became aware for the first time
That I am part river.
The descent of the waterfall pleases me,
The skin rot and the poisoned mouth
Is what I choose for a purpose
Or no purpose or nothing or no what.

“Slave to yourself” you said,
As if that makes these grey days easier.
“You’re only drowning when you wish to
All of your concerns are fake.”

Pass by the chapel; you can still smell the faint odour of the
                                                                 echoing ringing bells.
A note of bright seclusion.
Translucent was worse, glass walls aren’t so honest.
The spirit is always whole.
This lesson was learnt on passing dry land, where breath resides.
You are airless by choice
Alive through selfish will.