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

I.

The three – they ‘wove hangings
                            and covered it with their broidered
                                                        garments,’ dressed it up
Like a woman; under her skirts:
                            forests. The conjurer
                                                        disappearing his lady
And reappearing her
                            in timber cabinets,
                                                        under table-cloths
Is discovering anima mundi
                            everywhere: I am,
                                                        I am here, everywhere;
Now any empty space
                            could be hers or in her.

II.

Ora et labora; alchemist,
                            in the library which is his laboratory,
                                                        sets up his pipes, tubes and globes,
A laboratory shining with its glasses
                            that are books so excited
                                                        that they start to distil their contents
Not waiting
                            to be warmed by the reader’s eyes.

III.

Prayer, ora, is transformation of ores.
                            By praying the alchemist enters
                                                        a dowsing condition,
His retorts
                            sigilise sexual intercourse,
                                                        he is now a Detector and Inspector
Of the minute electricities
                            that prickle over the rock samples.
                                                        The vapours speak to him
As they enter him,
                            the word ‘metal’ in Langland
                                                        means ‘dream’, opening thus
The planetary gates in the operator,
                                         his flowering wheels, his faire fields.

IV.

These practices
                            touch the hem of the spirit
                                                        abroad in the air
Prickling like starlight,
                            elastic air which is also
                                                        the quickening sexuality
Of the alchemist’s delight
                            and bliss as he kisses
                                                        that hem again;
This spirit is vulva-hemmed.