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

When will my heart not echo bitterness?
When will it not resound with anger?
This night.
The Plough my silent companion all these years
guards the darkness again
This night and every night.
Tomorrow, phone-calls and distant voices
answering, sobbing, on flights into Dublin aerport,
lonely drives down to Shannon's side.

One morning when the sun rises in my room,
when it turns gold the walls and
wakes me, I'll know the time has
come to turn from anger.
Turn from all the things of the past,
follow the sun always forward, and when
she sets be but wistful for a moment.

Tonight my father sleeps and I'm not sure
that he will wake. All night by the fire I
watched him, every catch of his breath while
he slept catching my heart and squeezing
tightly. Tomorrow promised good, Indian summer
they'll start to say in shops and pubs to
pass the time, and be polite, Indian summer.

How will I sleep this night, hearing
every creak of this our council house. Here we
came to rest after years of wandering,
here we grew and scattered out, and fold
back for Patrick's Day, and crushed pints in
Eamons; and Christmas and crushed pints in
Eamons; and last days before trains and buses
leave, for a quiet one, and quiet good-byes.

Is my father to join my mother this night?
I do not know. I know she waits and
watches all of us - she is our mother,
she never rests, for one cannot rest when
one has children. My mother waits with
the Plough and the Stars, I wait with
a pen in my hand.