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

In tree second, I was on time.
Someone with little importance.
Whose so little time knew less evil.
Asking the Gods to guide its steps.
Refusing to admit, living in dreams.
I was just a man, ordinary man.
Like everyone on the street, in the rain.
Emotionless, fixed on with a habit pattern.
Like the clouds passing by beneath the sky.
Like the storm shuddering every farmer hope.
Through others’ eyes, a beloved husband.
Through my own, nothing special.
Till the day by Allah’s will my time was.
Till death stroked me, my strength failed me.
In no mood, obliged to remove all doubt.
The truth so hidden to unveil, the land that lay so far.
In the valley between, I answered like a man in doubt.
To the voices below, the prayers without bow.
And the long loud intoned Amen wishing hopes.
That indeed only at the point of death.
The split of second that differentiates one and all.
Man clearly sees in the horizon nothing but his fate.
The shallow of his ephemeral time murmuring, he hears.
The conduct of his days, his past life.
As for me, so determine, I did serve my time until my death.
As for now, so in despair and hope among the shaded.
Gently I began to weep like a child for the past.
Looking back at my steps, looking one last time.
The image of my wife glimmering in the distance.
Tearing her hair, I listened her cries, her low morn.
And the speechless sorrow of her eyes, sadly staring.
In the dark of night, with none to talk or listen.
Longing for my heavy steps, remembering
nothing to write on my tomb, but.
None of earth knows his grave.
None of earth knows his hour.