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

i will not go the way of
cold blue paths
down hills with no trees
impotence bleeding through
nostrils

your hand covers the whole
of my hand
clutched over mine
hold tight
as you stretch
over my dreams
under my dreams
catching my wanderings
down the strawberry picked devon lanes

this firm hand
is the owner of the script
i peek over the edge of
the dull brown chair
to see your marks laid out

simple alone words
letters not even joining
standing proud
each singing its own song
tall straight delphinium
orchestrate their shared
blue haze

take me through your vowels
in your mouth
tangle me round the k and q
on your page
lick my o and e
wrung out by hard faced consonants
in my chambers

in my locked rooms
where i store my treasure chest
of rejection
special blue green topaz
i keep meaning to shape
into a necklet
but it lies in the dark
to consume its own blue
green blue green
deeper and deeper

there is no lock to these rooms for
no one knows they are here
no doors no windows

but you want to come in
and rummage around
to recognise these sharp edges
with that certain touch
of your hand clutched around mine

so in this no light
you stumble
on the cobbled ground
inside my store house
of pain and denial

inside books molder
the smell sickens you
it sickens me
as secrets rustle under your
searching grasping
desire

your fingers find the edge of the wound
the place of no return
where the cool cool pearls
i have hidden nestle
secure

and the feel of these pearls
leads you into
the centre of this
room of denial

and here you feel
my naked fluid body
i have reached the point of liquid
as your hands
bathe inside me

the wounds are a serpents skin
you unwrap from me

you watch denial fall to the floor

we look up and there is no roof
sunlight circles above
we stretch together
touch the walls
and find trees
touch the trees and
find smiles
and smile in this warm place

hold my hand like this
hold my hand