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

Making money is a serious business business
           wears a forbidding face
cracking with a smile no smile slime and smarm
       I quidcareless no-hoper with a walletful of life
and every minute ticked quid quid
           I superskiver singing bollocks to boondoggling
proud of my daytime laziness my nighttime zest
                       filing clerk of the dark cubby-hole
(ambitious for her blondeness
           the perfect-thighed Catholic of the sniffy suburbs
    virgin-venerating virgin
till groupied by three-chorded hairies
           doped dupe of pop frenzy)
    all through the langorous day I Dylan Thomased
and in the innervated evening D.M.Led
           I coin-contemptuous in the minting land
£.s.ded in psychedelic pseudoism
    cheap tricks of the market-place dull for a poetry-valued boy
                     boss-bullied and bolshie
I willing as the day to work for freedom
    recalcitrant to grind for place and lucre
and work like a rabid dog mad senseless
                     teeth bared for barbarity
work for the money to buy a self sold to buy itself
          work like a welcomed curse coursed
in the blood of my blood-foreign colleagues
      and I weary at seventeen of the old worlds ways
intent listener to the inner voice
                     clashed with a crass cold boss
   glib as bigotry puffed strutting peacock
         filling his emptiness with place and money
      red-faced boss-bully with his my-terms contract
and I unideaed anarchist made for kissing and strife
         walked alone the quiet lonely road
from place and money money and place

Son     I haven’t seen you for a while
            though today I thought I saw
in the back of a passing car
                   in the midday town
a head like yours
                   so many times asleep on my shoulder
son
         I a bastard never with a shoulder for my head
adrift on the lunchtime street
                   about my business as remote from me
as you once closer to me than myself
         I guilty yes guilty in the eyes of the world
in the heart of a woman who would forgive
                                anyone but me
    and that they call love
son    this I call love    my unspoken heart
           you maybe you maybe only a head like yours
in a car on a street in a petty town
                    a pettiness
but I disconsolate and wordless utter this word
       father
my legitimacy
                      the unwanted unloved bastard

Dad  I think I might have seen you
         on the midday street
from the back of a passing car
                      you or someone like you
turned as we did
         maybe you recognised as we flashed by
your son’s shadow
                      and you were on your own
and so was I in a carful of strangers
         people I earn a living with
that kind of loneliness of colleagues
                      me adrift in the twelve o’clock traffic
both of us innocent and punished for it
         you about your business you don’t like
and I about mine
                      wanting other business to be about
maybe it was you
         and in the speeding car on a hard ringroad
I dreamed I was that boy again
                       beside you on the leather seats
two males
and in front of us miles and miles diappearing behind
         and nothing in our way
going nowhere except where we wanted to go
                       for the sake of going
together

                   On frozen Avenham in the colluding dark
thieves of a little illicit life
          too late for happiness we kissed
and the lights of a police car lit our indiscretion
                   garish intrusive
as we held one another in the blinding glare
          that made invisible
                   who presumed a right to see

                   Dream of a new world
circumstance the renewer of circumstance
          from dry ungreen Egypt
victorious     to drab rationed England and a dream
                   sing to us they said
I ocean-voiced ex-serviceman
          sitting-room Sinatra
sang sweet enough to be grooved
                   too diffident to croon beyond the front-room
          demobbed into democracy and Clem’s quiet revolution
my dream was freedom from the boss and the bureaucrat
                   my dream was the death of deference
          my dream was freedom on Fishergate and Friargate
my dream was love and a family and friendship
          dream of the ragged boy the contre-coeur conscript
                   I proud on Cheapside and Glover’s Court
       Co-op flourboy dusted with ambition for
                                each man a king
          and love was mine
and poetry and symphonies and wine
          and justice and freedom and happiness was mine
in a land to be new made
                        in my dream

Father at eleven when he left
          from the dark wardrobe I stole
a too-long tie and went to school a man
                    and what was algebra to this
or mass and magnetism
          the date of Agincourt or Shakespeare’s wit
    I sterning aside childhood to be the missing man
was a man too soon and a child too long
          noosed by that bit of him I filched
the forgotten accessory
                    hanging neglected in the emptied vast

          And her hand I held
                      she three year’s innocent
fatherless and I in the morning leading her gently
          and in the evening
I child-man boy-father in the cracked house
     where the seared hearts beat loneliness and shame
          he not strong enough to stay against
the stubborn righteousness of wounded Christian pride
                      and it was this

the pulse of a cock’s blood
          the pull of a cleft’s clutch
the universe’s sin
sick sex-exaggeration and the sadist’s fist round the
                                                                 tender heart
       and jealousy mad and murderous making
adults into infants infants mad
          mind melted by the fast flow of blood
the sudden swish of love through the arteries
                      as if a hoop of iron can command
          a firmness into memory
mind ruled by foundried laws
                      forged in steel and steam
          hammered in dishonest pulpits
   culled from cruel black covers
and children’s hearts that swelled with love for both
                      were torn out of their breasts
          and choice of mother/father put before them like
               pick of knife or gun

          Loafing in the evening     walking slow and easy
in the morning lazing and in the afternoon
                       turning up the collar of my navy blue reefer
I young sweet-fleshed blue-eyed boy
          boy of the crooked smile
                        of sex-love’s svelte song
girl-pulsing boy swoon-maker
                    growing to the world I said
what is the world and
          how the world
                  and what shall I be in the world
and how shall the world be with me
          this word spoken like a promise
Society
          and she beneath the drizzle and a streetlamp
lowered her quiet lashes
                        lay her tender head a moment on my chest
and was for me the world its reasons and its rights
          two-minute paradise of culture’s tryst with nature
   and our dry kiss in the autumn wet
was innocence s censure of society’s hurt

                        From the suburbs starting
                from priveted stiff Penwortham
        looking for Society
for a culture to kiss my nature
              I sixteen-year’s ideal
seeking the generous social fact
        the honest policy
searching in the cold ulterior world of shifting men
        for the clean clear rightness of my inward impulse
the mustness of it
                   for mind reaches for its real
        like a lizard’s tongue for flies
and destiny is both an acid twist
        and mankind’s making of mustness’s home

                 Here
society’s handshake was a pay-packet and slavery
          and I no more than arms and legs and hands and eyes
and brains for work for pelf

And where was freedom in freedom’s land
          walking Cop Lane and Broadgate
striding strong and easy Highgate’s snootiness
                on Crow Hill’s Road and Crookings Lane
in the backs of Talbot Road and harsh Marsh Lane
       on Walton Ave and Bishopsway
on Blashaw Lane and Hurst Grange Park
                on Woodland Grove and Kimgsway
in the down-at-heel warmth of a Polish house
       on Skeffy Road and Moor Park Lane
on Lowthorpe or on Deepdales dirty ground
                where was freedom

          And foreign voices came like well-loved friends
song of Montmartre and the Bateau Lavoir
          sweet airs of the sixième and quiet Croisset
as if I’d discovered myself
                     this always known
known anew
          freedom from the narrowness of a niggard isle
from sexless Wesleyism
          and God drowned in the Ribble
                     dirty with Protestant profit
and freedom was in no choice but to choose

        On dull Sunday evenings at six
tight-suited smart and calm
        on the back-row wicker seats
in a plain poor dour building
                    in a rich pretentious zone
I took my pre-sex preaching
        then pubwards quiet querying and queer
went on my usual crusading quimquest

And the vain father drove out in the spring morning
        looking for himself
along arterial roads the vain father sped
                    and his job was selling
paint the vain father sold to many shops
        paint to keep the northern rain from seasoned wood
and himself he sold
                    stepping from his car carefully groomed
the vain father in the silk cravat or the artificial tie
        smiling grimly with the grimness of his vanity
the blue-eyed deep-voiced father
                    coming to a shop in the valley
in a cold east-of-the county town
      the blue-eyed deep-voiced father took out his colour chart
and his bald adversary was wary
                    wary of the vain father’s charm
for he was famous in his realm
         in Leyland and Chorley
from Accrington to Darwen
                          in Lancaster and Blackpool and as far as Oldham
                he had conquered with his charm
      the blue-eyed father and slick commercial traveller
filled the emptiness of his life by selling
         as vain men fill the emptiness in their lives by selling
selling themselves a dream of themselves
         the vain deep-voiced father with the persuasive tones
spoke of chemicals for he was a representative
                       and not just of himself
but of ICI which filled the world with useful chemicals
         and some harmful
     the bald adversary had the advantage of territory
but the slick commercial traveller had the edge in tongue
         for bald pate must fill his shelves to tempt
     the good citizens of the damp valley
                       and the overalled professionals
who must climb ladders to keep impervious
         the window-frames and gutters
the downspouts and the doors
                       of houses cramped and roomy
dwellings of the poor the comfortable and the rich
           and the slick commercial traveller had the goods
he had the tins
     he had the primer and the undercoat
he had the gloss
           and he had the emulsion for the hallway
bald pate shopkeeper could not resist
           for the paint was of a superior kind
it was not Robilac
 which the slick commercial traveller had once sold
           it was the best
as the bald adversary knew for he had seen the adverts
                       on a two-channel nine-inch

from the breast pocket of his Burton’s suit
         the vain father drew a fountain pen
 gold-nibbed
                  and the bald shopkeeper spoke his order
 ivory jasmine cherry-red and indigo
            half-pint and two pint and even half-gallon
so the slick commercial traveller left the shop in victory
                    as he left many shops
he of the superior paint
         victorious in the selling battle
having sold himself
         blue-eyed and superior to the salesmen who sold less
    the slick commercial traveller went on his way
                    through the valley and towards the sea
where the salt eats into the paint and business is brisk
where a conquering paint salesman can hold his head high
         and he entered the shop of the man with the lovely wife

beautiful she was with a dark-eyed beauty
                    and dark-haired
on her white shoulders the dark hair fell
         and her dark lashes curled to torment
and when she raised them her eyes blue and dark
                    bright with blueness and still
dark at the centre
         looked straight at the vain father
with a disturbing frankness
                    for the slick commercial traveller
         was weak in his longing for happiness
as all men are weak
                    but his weakness was stronger
as was his unhappiness
         for the unhappy child is never a man
and the vain father hid behind his vanity
                    his longing for a mother
flirting with the lovely dark woman helplessly
         under the very gaze of the nonchalant husband
no longer thinking of paint or his slick selling skills
                    deep-voiced and blue-eyed
the charming seducer sought to inveigle
          with the usual inevitabilities of glances and gazes
of standing too close and speaking too low
                    but the nonchalant husband smiled
and the dark woman was not charmed
          so the slick commercial traveller lonely as a married man
as he was a married man
    drove home across the flatlands
past the grim streets of his birth
          up Penwortham Hill to his home among the bourgeois
where he didn’t belong
                    this stranger everywhere
to a houseful of strangers who were his wife and children
          and himself
and in the evening from the sofa he watched
    with his wife and children silent around him
                 slick adverts for toothpaste razor blades
and paint

          Many times he had to travel far
far from his home in the grimy populous north
      sometimes for a night
sometimes for days he would be away
          for a paint salesman has many trials to endure
and    must be trained
          in expensive hotels in lavish conference rooms

in green counties in the south
          the commercial traveller was instructed
instructed in the art of doing battle with reluctant retailers
and in the evenings in lush dining-rooms
          he sat with his colleagues
slick commercial travellers all
          from Huddersfield
      Wrexham Chester-le-Street and Ipswich
men away from their homes their wives and children
          men in the great world of men
learning how to accomplish great deeds of selling
          how to beat the targets
to do better than the next salesman
                    for a salesman knows no loyalty but to sales
and while the vain father was away
        regretting often his lack of opportunity for adultery
(for the conferences the dull hours the long lectures
          the laborious note-taking
the extended meals the ever-escalating tales of conquest
          the golf-club chit-chat and exchange of prejudice
kept him from attempts on easy barmaids
                    nubile waitresses
and voluptuous receptionists)
          his dutifully faithful wife lay in her lonely bed
filled with fantasies of foul deeds of faithlessness
                         her mind ablaze with images unbidden
the young blonde the older brunette the louche red-head
         and in the anguish of her certainty of his betrayal
she rehearsed confrontation tears accusation
                    she replayed scene upon scene
she appealed to her brothers her father
         she cast the evil one into the darkness
the farthest darkness reserved for the blackest souls
                    god’s tar-black torture pit
where the stinking adulterer would suffer eternally
         while she in sunshine light peace and love
displayed her unblemished soul to an indulgent deity
                    but deeper than the pure white soul she saw
lay the soul she didn’t
         and murderousness rose like poisoned water in a drain
he the foul betrayer the certain adulterer
   he who should be obliterated for the sake of her pure soul
he indeed who slept soundly and alone
         for want of the occasion
snoring as he did beside her
                    in a luxurious hotel room
(for ICI did not skimp in provision for its warriors)
         he innocent by default and guilty by paranoia
returned from his long sojourn in the well-heeled south
                    bearing expensive flowers and chocolates
(for an expense account is easy to fiddle)
         and she - the children in bed - sour-faced
net the wanderer the man redolent of the world of men
         the world of money and selling
the world of splendid accomplishments of selling
         with a stone wall
threw his flowers at the wallpaper
                    his chocolates in the bin
herself into bed her face to the emulsion (pale lemon)
         while the vain father sat alone dreaming
dreaming of an easy loving woman
                    unjealous and adept

Oh the joy of the blue P5
Oh the pleasure of the red P2
Oh the delight of the trees that met
         across the narrow two-lane hill
while we with youth’s delight in danger
                    oblivious of the world’s hurt
        forced our feet on the rigid chromium bar
             front-seated on the upper deck
the branches leafed like we were leafed
             green and sappy with expectation
                           licking the windows as we passed
and dipped as on a sixpenny ride
                    to nowhere

               a boil upon our healing skin
a carbuncle a sore a putrid gash
                     a poison and a sickness in the blood
bile resentment and hate
                           3rd May 1979

             Quiet time in a green place
wooded boy of the rushing brook
                      of the April sap and the sad October wind
         which touch a young brain unlike iron and brick
lucky in the winter stream and the autumn climb
                      among supporting roots and the dry red leaves
             away from my mean streets only
by eight crosses on the Saturday coupon
         I knew the plants I didn’t care to name
   and birds by their flute and hop
                      in the big space the wild free space
and all I learned then without learning equals
         all I learned in lecture halls and libraries
effortfully
                 the first book I read was the sky
         spelling the smell of autumn
unbooked and hungry for the world’s
       taste and feel
         as later hungry for words
quick as a vole in the slow-turning summer
               and the black bookended days of waiting winter
             eager pupil of the earth’s teaching
my sweet brain like a lover sought
    the kiss and kiss again of virgin nature