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

      Can this pale image that I see
Incredulously staring
Back from the mirror-glass at me
With my own eyes and wearing
What seem to be my features
Indeed be that same face
I saw on the tranquil waters
Of still pools far away,
Where once I leaned with a heart serene
And crystal-clear as they?
      I close my eyes and see vast skies
And lakes of long ago;
Like rays of light through thickening mist,
The thronging memories flow.
      Oh, make it not to be, God!
Let it pass with the passing night!
And then again I open my eyes,
And behind, unchanged, the same room lies
In the single lamp's dim light.
      My poor soul! I say softly,
I believe that nothing more
Is left for you now but the one clear course:
Go out by the open door.
      Why, what can you hope for if you remain?
What have you here to do,
But, day after day, in profitless pain
Go dragging from place to place a chain
Of self-contempt and self-pity as vain
As the world you drag it through?
      Till this present from which you shrink
Shall become the distant past,
And that future of which you dare not think
Be realised at last,
And there dawn the day when you shall say:
Whatever has been has been.
It is time to put the past away,
That I may live again.
      And so at the last your state
Will be worse than it was before  -
Oh, you who begin to weep too late,
Dread when you weep no more.
Strike now and make an ending  -
Lest you be consoled tomorrow!
Strike, while the heart you bear within
Still knows of love and sorrow!
      Why linger to inhabit
A hollow heartless shell?
Since all things have forsaken you,
Forsake yourself as well.
      Ah, God, can you not see  -
If you would still live on,
You will have to efface from your heart all trace
Of that it has undergone?
Else, how will you laugh or weep
Or take one step on earth?
Conserve on those terms your wretched breath,
If you count it of so much worth!
      And your path will be as through halls of glass,
Where you walk close-wrapped, having constant care
To touch no object as you pass,
Lest the walls reproach you there.
      Yes, this is the price of life now:
Not only must you forget,
But blind your eyes to what exists,
Lest every sight should set
Ringing and sounding through all your soul
Your never-assuaged regret.
      Deny, and buy survival!
Or perish and keep faith!
Body or soul  -  one must atone.
Become a corpse, or else your own
attenuated wraith!