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

Inside the words
a river, an ocean, a lake.
The jut of her nose.
I remember one rich girl saying
how she was nothing but hook-
nosed and wretched, that
writer. That terrible feminist.
She brings you out in a rash,
a rush of defensive adjectives
which push me to think of

green. Green beneath your flesh and
fish scales and stale water.

That last entry.
Haddock for tea.
The victorious tragedy
Of our lives.

~ 

my eyes ride over the photograph,
a boat bobbing up and down on waves,
swaying backwards and forwards.
her hair is reed-like, her nose forms
a distant mountain, her lips are the crevices
of rocks, or maybe shells.
the line of her throat is the shoreline of
a sea which ebbs and is pulled by
o that waxing moon, out of it pours
words and something exterior to the
constraints of language.
her breath is the breese which blows my hair
away from my face, leaving my mouth clear
for utterances of adoration.

~ 

it is blue and black and white
I associate with you.
the way your portrait looks so
incredibly different
in blue
and then in black and white.

the way shades affect perceptions
and the mood of your face.
the blue softens you, as it often does.
the waves roll at the back of your eyelids.
I wonder what you are thinking,
and what your lips would betray
if they parted and
whispered.
the black and white
shows your true mood.
I imagine you have grown tired of company
or just come in from the garden
and are still in contemplation
or irritation. I cannot tell which.
I don’t notice your nose.
I notice your eyes and
the shade of your cheeks.

islands which are pockets
of words.