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

For over three years worth
of sun-drunk mornings,
        marinaded
in aromas of sashlick sauce,
Sabathra unknowingly
        serenaded
the space between our
dreamtimes and our
        wakeful days

dripping bright saris across
sharp North Easterlies, she
        plucked
her washing lines
like sitar strings, cast
        tremulous
quavers over the
moss-cushioned wall
        fluttering,
like a moon-moth swarm
through the corona of gas cookers
        leaning
tusk-white in the yard

now,
as we make plans to leave,
a terrain of snails,
a cloud of gulls
and a cuckoo
appear upon a chain of
        hiccups
and squirrels lured
from secreting snacks
for the end of summer,
join the conference
to listen to the lilt of
her seedsong
        stir
the toxic fur
of stinging nettles
and the crumpled petals
of pink purslane
that sway
around the teacrates
        stamped
with the rogue elephant
of......PERTAGBHUR

all this before
the slithering strains
invade the open window

of this rented womb,
where pale fruits grow
and the earth inhales,

where contractions collide,
fish surface and dive
in the patterns of the shagpile,

drunk on sunshine
and sashlick sauce...

to soothe the woes
of samsara
Sabathra spins a web of
        Vishnu’s sutras
from a Bollywood flick
and sends Englishness adrift
        in a riptide of djinns,
paperchasing
chipstained headlines
around the off-licence
        litter bin

from the depths
of pillowed plans
memories of avatars
        rise in a wave
across vast lunar scapes,
to where I sit
                     on the bed
with fatherhood beckoning
while a lotus flower sprouts
        from my navel

        tone deaf
to the threats
of diasporic Raksasha**,
I hear the devotions of pigeons,
tumbling from heaven
as sacks of soft hope
stuffed with seraphim feathers

see a turtle crawl
from the shadows of the door
belly sore
and shell shocked
from the weight
of its world

a wild boar
wrecks the wardrobe,
a lion-man and a dwarf
climb the walls,
looking to escape
incarnations on the wheel,

weary of fighting demons,
they sigh...

just once,
let old pacts lie
let us sleep
the deep river
of primordial tears

as the alarm clock’s bleep
stabilises space n’ time
        visions scatter
back to their eeries
in the wellspring
        of dharma

        and you,
beloved, curled - becoming
earthed beneath the quilt
turn in your sleep
from the kick
        inside.