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

“Here charity - each social tie,/Is frozen into stone;/Man looks on man with iron eye /And feels for self alone.//Then bretheren, let us timely haste,/To quit this scene of fear,/And on some spot amid the waste,/Our social mansion rear.” (from “Social Hymn No.74” sung at the laying of the foundation stone for Huddersfield’s Hall of Science, April 2, 1838, quoted in Alan Brooke, ‘The Hall of Science’, p.29; Workers History Publications, Mag Dale, Honley, 1993)

as embryo spaceship/chimney that burns dead -
mill tower on hillside high above mill
carry smoke away
has reached by tunnel/shaft like reverse mine
but that is across valley gorge
here is climb up up to rockoutcrop
no trace of tower gone as quarried off
or swallowed of wind
I climb sharp greatness grate of crag
where perches edge above valley
before land slants in more gently
tiltshelf
up to farm of Horsehold was
forest wardens
hunting house
is precisely here where gritstone
overhangs sticks tongue Out into
air
the tower was t came
was I the one disguised
did I ride the far skies
learn what there of truth
Tower of Truth, of Thoth, of Hermes
Trismegistus, of the 42 wisdom
books,
whose tarot Book of Truth
so surely centres on
just such
lightning-struck tower
scene story pictures here
of figure falling at bolt’s impulse
through emptiness
forever
is maybe first set belonging
to such place here,
though first truth-archive
buried by sand domewave dune
as my memory bank by what unreached
collapse faultlines down to untraced
invisible insealed as
tower was here by
deepswallow throat
of this split reheated rock

In old pages tower-as-was
is named Oswald but is must be
this place Horsehold
though I remember nothing except
uncertain sureness
have been here before

it must be I was the Starseer
star-goer the old

story retold tells
some datatrace in mind is
my story
one of my stories
of my times in
my places

I went for soldier
in far war

against all regulation
she
whatever she
in this - that - time
Editha from Kirklees
house in woods made of stones off
nunnery wreck unlucky
from where prioress murdered
slow poisoning
hood-hid outlaw Robin there
went with me to the fight over Europe
disguised as one more soldier
though I don’t have in mind memory of
my knowing she was there
watching for my survival
but then what do I remember of what I am told
I should remember
by so many voices printing
my story here and then again there

it says as I remember again
leaning here against wind
holds me from falling over
into emptiness far over Calder
remember not of my own recall but
what is said of what I in such story did

she saw me fall in some battle
without meaning except who should take
place of whatever foreign king with
foreign name in place
unknown or without meaning
on unending flatness of unreal
unlike this multilayered sky-clutching
hill-handed land
east to forever to Ural plain-clutching place

Came home weeping the death yet fact
I was not sent or gone under soil
or ditch to turn grass
nor either yet sent or gone
to that
Dark Tower on the Moon-storehouse of dead
before even placing of
monument of old false landing
- sit was not me went there
when other foreigners miscalled
me Orlando said
while I was crazy for foolish
love of another she this time called
Angelica some friend
some Astolpho I also do not
remember at all
flew
to that dead world to seek my cure
where lost brains lost sense
drift around loweighing emptiness

and yet I have been far beyond air-gravity barrier
I am sure I see in inside eye the sight
of having seen
this planet shrunk down marble alley small
and on past
moon dead dump smaller stilt loser
in bullseye game
not catching as thought an instantsight
moon’s maybe
Dark Tower to store
dead end there
in jars bottles glass magnifiers or ever
moving as if wind through windless
place having no need of
non-existent air
and if I had done what I should
horn blast could have
returned them back alive
as I from that war
disguised so cleverly as
wizard as foreteller of magically perfect
all-known futures
all so greedy for such knowledge from me
never dared question who could really be
under wise metal mask and swirl

of garments of that trade festooned with
universe-grip-
wisdom-suggesting cutout shapes
of planets moons and stars.

I went
I remember now am sure
it is true
a shiny ship came for me
among the rocks overlooking
air outside my tower
arrived lured perhaps
by reputation
or to punish pride I took
in prediction
foolishness to wear insignia of stars
as if belonged to them

was taken up to where Earth toy
to and through dead star hulks
beyond all everywhere anyone had ever known

taken carried as child is
safe over water here
darkness of endless empty Outwhere
to distant then growing then skyfilling
comet and straight into mind
wordless guide-pilot
of this just enough for two bodies
spaceship told I was born under
this comet and will return
to visit Earth as if to check up
on me each five years

but here so far from sun
no glory peacock tail just
one more cold iceball hulk hulldown
in torpid as cows in heat herd
of such of Kuyper Belt beyond
all planets where our star just speck
and voice inside my head said we’d go in

high over my perch here
midair hangs small sharp
killer watcher
merlin unmoving held by air
prepared to dive to kill
as soon as life is seen
I far too big for
clawfit beakfit of
yet feel choice target under
threat of this as of germ unseen yet there
and remember I should be able to remember

within my Natal Planet as was told that comet
was having quick as thought uncaught
you know somehow you have had
been carried into it to
bright metal-wall hail
in coreheart

in such forever-modern seeming
brightness feeling embarrassed out of time a fool
in garish wizard clothes should have been
dull as palmer pilgrim
or my camo jacket now grey and black
Rorschach blot flecked as backend

fallen leaves of sycamore that never
take on season-expected colour

in this hail this temple
of what god what race so brilliant
Kardashee-wise would feel as god to us
if we could even notice them
among the universal wheeling noise of
everything’s forever moving unmotioned silence
for how they can move the universe about
as we the feeblest drunk
I was not told and there where metal
gleamed how gold can
somehow a merlin as just seen
survived and hovered
inhead voice saying is “Genius of Star”
and still as pearl gate sleep gapes with
in old songs
quick as fire leaping
guided wordless
to mirror huge as hugest telescope’s
a wall a dome a floor all in one
here where no up no down a sphere inside
a sphere and
I knew somehow would tell
all my future as I
told those who came to me
theirs but this
would be true not clever tricks and games

that I survivor of pointless war
living a second life by luck
felt entitled to play on those
ditchdulls stuck in one place
all lifelong who had not seen
as I had how windscreen-insectly
squunch
splat the great ones
kill to gain another title to their name

that mirror pulled my eyes until
I in it a moving puppet toy moved through
futures blotting out its mirrorpool of stars

and wonder now
why so selfish I if as
is in memory of memory
did not ask to see
all human future as was asked
of Queen Mab why only
my
small personal goings forward

no social context is this in all
my doings also true
but also as soon as returned
to this rock here outside my tower
forgot how had been shown or what 
that foreknowing still I would
kill what was loved even though
had been told
the forgetting perhaps part of same future
trick was played on me the comet-being
cometbrain whatever
race or species it might be or god

even luring me most perhaps onward to make
proleptic seeing true
its game a vaster parody of mine to test
if foreknowledge pulls
towards not away from
most disastrous action
as if knowing where a doom lies
rushes us more towards it
into such action
knowing at some unknowing brainlevel
what is possible
that it is possible
forces you to do to
prove it true
the vision
the possibility of harm within
luring onrush quicker than downstream

to leap of force of waterfall
and for an instant felt
tuned to this century now
as if belonged
in time where foreknowing damage
filings to magnet pulls them
- us if insofar I am
by being part of this - on to do
as if all given bright
celestial voyage as mine
of vision high as suns
and never think on part of sender or receiver
fatal flaws will spin from
great glory to down-dead offshit leaves
having no upward route
only an all-down fall

I looked about
bird swooped on elsewhere now to threaten

no car in view on up-spiral of road
no walker

checking carefully as if about
to leak where is no hiding shelter

took out the horn and blew
sound lost in hugeness of valley gorge’s air

hoping my self trapped in these rocks would
break through when called

unheal the swallowing split and tell me
what was true of all of this

nothing no no-one came
only an eye of faith could make
rock shape its cracks and hollows into
starting face
not mine and would not answer anyhow

I had been told comet on its fourth run and fifth approaching
which made me only into twenties and yet felt and
in my disguise as fortune-teller
high in tower not poor fraud of tent at gala rainsoaked fete
using brand-name Anselmo
ancient as centuries

the profitable rigmarole on and on
through time

and then over rockhead of Balderstone
faint first but growing

widening out its sweeping tail with passing
days weeks into winter nights
MY comet came again

driving me night after night to peer to check
its state without clear reason
or recall of why compulsion came

one evening into my session
a face I knew I knew

I spoke from behind a thick velvet curtain now
mystique of power grown with mystery

saw her through one-way opening for my prying
checking client faces for betraying data I could use

this one called by my signalling horn to speak
said how she’d gone to war disguised to
guard her best-loved

saw him fall
shielded the body from mutilation

sure of death deserted
came back to her home to mourn
came now to ask of his salvation and to speak
could it be done with his voice from the final other
nearfar postdeath land

I do not want to finish remembering
but then I am not remembering
myself only a story
of someone something
acts supposed to be by myself

I am not to blame
if I do not truly remember
I have tried and I cannot
I have blown the horn and it has not worked

on this rock height
where a tower a rockbuilt dome
marvellous as built by elves
no longer is

lacking proof it ever was
I am safely distant from the story
in which this supposed eye
for whom I am not responsible surely
cannot be made to feel guilty
any more for anything

from behind the curtain tells her
he is still alive
they will marry that night
magical the ceremony he describes

under the glitter as sky full of glowing
gossamer web of comet his comet

besides what happened would be explained
readily   these days as post battle horror
trauma
the survivor guilt of not really
having been dead on shelltorn mudded
battlefield without purpose
kid’s claypuddle grown unstoppable
mega natural-unnatural
mess to slop up over
boots bodies how peat-killed Black
Hill top is and for our lot
not even cenotaph of trig point
as others he - I - knew
comrades from these same
nowhere valleys were

let me get it over
the events are past now
unchangeable
no point in crying over
milk spilt to look like
comet tail over sky

in the night’s passing he - I - watched
for the last of his - my
comet vanishing behind those ridges to westwards
towards another country
and went when no trace left far over
Lancashire
into bedroom of tower where she’d
gone to deep sleep waiting
and for no reason with meaning

having a knife to hand
seemed to spin into dizziness

thinking as last conscious thought
was from too much peering up staring
into spinning sky

and woke to find
knife in hand
red as Mars not comet-glitter of unstained
metal and between him - me - and her
joining wound in her had turned her
cold as sky beyond air of space
where that journey went

and then before time for grief for guilt
speedup as in old film
thunderings of storm heaving
of floor underfoot
cracking splitting tearing

of walls
of all certainty and falling
endlessly falling into
earth open to swallow everything

“engulphed” and there’s an end to it

what could I have to do with that
or how take any blame
for any piece of it

having come back so far can take
comfort of that

and this time an instant enjoyed
blowing last blast off horn
and even smiled
how baffled openmouth face of car

fancy four-wheel drive driver sailing past
at such an apparition erupted
as he’d think
not knowing ledge below beside the road
at cliffedge

out of the living rock
and went back downhill wondering
how or if

memory will in fact remember this

more puzzling even walking downhill
as if subconscious punning found
had for no reason could make sense
even wind easing now around hill corner

horn a hard-on and then
as soon as thought of gone

and into mind phrases thrown up from nothing
could be reached
from instant earthquake tempest
in my mind how
in that story told me of myself
“The dead return to life and love again”
having of course already
been
snatched away by 2 “shapes, on whom no summer ever shone” -

self and self again
inside my head wise-foolish answer

and second time in so few minutes
was smiting without reason
the feet ongoing swallowing up
swift downhill ground