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

Comical now in a cynical age            w.no sacred cow
                           her wrist-on-forehead emotiveness
           but then,                  back then,
           a kohl-eyed destroyer of men;

           a sepia-shadow skull for screen.
Cloaked, serene, swaying
                mesmerizing her prey       the audience.

Eyelids shivering, definition of vamp           originator of vamp
             captivating w. caprice & coy canter of the lips
                           the bumbling heroes   dumbly tripping
                           over chivalry's empty scabbards.

Remorse-she has none for romance         what motives then?
her face a gatling gun of mirrors      taking in adulatory gazes
              like bullets to fire back     their own naivety
                            reflecting the depths
                                         of their sacrifice along every inch
                                                     of trajectory.
She so brassy shell; loaded & cocked to snip mien.

Addict's hooded stare starting to snood the diffluent eyelines.
Broad cleft chin & brutal lips preparing bourd or boutade 
                                                                  unpredictable.

           blanked by statements in exclamation marks.
           black frame            sentence in white gilt.
           played out to insane piano.
           an entire ethos feagued in a decade to foreclose.

from slim, pallid Cigarette         smouldering
             she will go east                           as emollient Salome
    igniting w. a dance of the seven veils
                                        men compelled to throw
                                                      their hair to her fire.

Divine precursor to feminist desire        (or feminine paregoric)
                                taking hold where it hurt the most
                                     even before most knew where that was
& what they'd lost
Was something not in the can
              Theodosia's 'arab death' became theirs too.