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

Why did Pliny make for the centre of the catastrophe
When the cloud rose up in the shape of a pine
White and filthy as the elements it had dragged aloft
As a man of science he thought the matter
Worth a closer look. He called for his sandals
Launched the quadriremes and with a favourable wind
Bore towards Vesuvius dirt and red-hot pumice
Why did he not remain at a safe distance
At his card-table in Misenum
He knew the true nature of the upheaval
Harmlessly verdant to the summit, the peasants
Settle in the ashes of their hopes
When the memory cools and is able to calculate
As you know, land prices have risen again
Pliny the Younger writes to Maecilius Nepos
Because the Princeps has obliged the candidates
To purchase land before their election
A dwelling place in the Empire country houses under the volcano
The risks of the political cinder-track, why
Did he want to know exactly He hurried
Where others were fleeing from, directly into the danger
Dictating to a scribe all the images of the disaster
While the sea withdrew and chunks of stone were falling
In his complete Natural History (37 volumes)
He had foretold the event and the end of the world
Which now was reduced to his own
A man of my age with an insatiable curiosity He
Had himself carried to the bath, dined quietly and lay down
In the horror, his breathing, because of
His corpulence, audible
Why did I remain in the midst of the catastrophe
Of my century The Betrayed Revolution
With all the traitors who wished to know it betrayed
I thought the matter worthy etc. They fastened cushions
On their heads for protection against the falling stones
I knew the true nature of the upheaval
Planted with red flags to the summit, the workers
And peasants scrabbling in the mud of promises
I have described (in volume after volume) the downfall
Only now and then a mouthful of cold water
And the end will only be my own
Meanwhile I bathe and eat
Of the dross of another catastrophe
The Triumph of the West by J.M.Roberts
Observed close up a natural phenomenon
Till the debris reaches the doorstep crushingly
Why do I not abide
At my desk in my certain hope
Only now and then it was necessary
To shake off the ash so as not to be buried
The steamrollers of progress breathtaking
They stopped his throat The ash of Auschwitz
The dark cloud in the shape of a mushroom
Leaping from the ground, why do I go on with the exercise
In the cold lava of the revolution
In the Nile mud of civilization
In a four-door wreck of an automobile
In the exhaust fumes of Naples