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

On Inis Mor
A long sun slants
Its utter east midsummer evening.
The pub, door open
Is inky with twilight.
A black dog
Fades in the boreen.

The edge of the first drunk glass glints
A last gold.

The dog is gone.

Tourists to the rim of the west
Clang and yap
Italian and Dublin
Across the bar.

And in the hanging moments
Island men,
In from fields and sea
Still gather to sing.

Holding hands,
They row the singer out from the day
Into the songs of early evening -
As they sit and sing for themselves.

With faces of work
And locked hands
Used to hard rhythm
They row him.

He pays out the words
Along his drone
Hanging long on the edge of the key,
A fragile slipping grip,
But then sure.
And dipping and rising.
Uncoiling.

Heads close bent,
They share the burden of the song.
Their ears watch the story unfold.
It touches their frowns with flickers of recognition.

So that they nod
And press on.
Pacing their fists.
Living the work.

The back-sprung Irish words
As secret from the tourists
As the seam of two lovers bellies
In the dark,
Touching

For these songs are heavy
With oiled desire.
A thousand times sung.
A thousand times drawn in.
Pangs, hanging
On hooks of yearning and heartbreak.
Lusts of youth,
Time-rowed smooth,
Fluid and edgeless,
By their straining.

They pull.
Singing for themselves.
Their heads close in.

Italian and Dublin shouts
Are rising oblivious.

A moment of breath.
The song is done.
Congratulating, they laugh
And slap each other,
As when together they pull in a net
Or draw up a boat.

Shy, they are lost
In a tongue of darkness
By the open door.
The singer grins
Over the edge of his glass.

Lights go on.
They file out,
To grey houses on the rim of the west.
The night promises rain.