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

              Up in the air
                 give me
                              air

      flying-machine like a bed
                       reportedly
                   a rough landing
                          in the sands

                         eagles
                                though with meat hanging above
                             a ragged team

                                 birds will sit
                                        on a plane's tail

                           propellors independent
                                the speed

                         hot smoke

                     then the open
                        air 
                       wide    "philosophers, officials, students and loiterers"

                                 le Champ de Mars where
                           it was raining "a 
                                     new-born baby?"          hour

                                 afterwards 'bounced
Guy Murchie           upon a field.' prodded
Song of the Sky     hissed out its
1954                       dangerous small the
                             evil    corpse dragged off
                                the fabric along the ground

                               sky from flat to round what
                                   cleared weather

                                sunshine to remember snow and the moon

                             a balloon with a picture
                           on it

                                         this was a success

   swift nearly as idea
  people considering travel

        so a week later
   'a sheep, cock and duck'

             in fancy stripes

  'honor' of being the ...
    nearly went to criminals
  and it seemed safe enough

       or

          cautiously they
            experiment,      Pilatre et
             le marquis, November
                                ...  
                        27 miles
                                          end of the year

             oop the shirt life, Louis
                     you who        1783
                 never went up

                   like the shah's 4-poster
                     to come down in the desert

                or across the Channel
                  into the wood

                                   compass, barometer, anchors, flags,
                                     apples, life jackets, small windmill,
                                       bottles of brandy, pamphlets
                                                                             oars ballast

                             even tossed his pants
                              overboard

                                the last dangerous minute

                              after relieving self

                                 the windy man

                               not much having worked

                            12 miles beyond the coast

                           the car
                         in the Calais museum

                                        albatross sleep high

                                           athletes, the birds 
                                         where the snow flies