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

The friends who met here and embraced are gone
Each to his own mistake. W.H. Auden.

When they announce the storm, I think of you immediately,
The waves coming up to the window, like they're doing
On the TV. The sea's a monster in the dark, faceless.
I watch the footage late into the night, until eventually
I ring you, and you say of course you're all right.

Your tone puts pay to any wild ideas the sea
Might be giving me. I wonder if your house still has
That wide view of it. Not much will have changed.
I remember where I parked on my first visit,
Pausing on your shore, like one of those shy creatures

You talked about - thought not to exist in British waters.
Then, one day, Weymouth seamen gathered one in
Amongst the fish. Not often you catch a myth.
I pictured the fisherman turning it in his hand,
Watching its eyes open and close, fragile as the old stories

In Greece - Poseidon below the oceans, Neptune
The Roman sea god with their power to command storms,
Rode magnificent chariots pulled by these. Hippos campus.
You took me to see them in the maritime museum,
Where even in nature they didn't look real. They looked edible,

As if alone they knew the sad secret of the world.
Now, on the small square of the TV screen,
The south coast of England is swept clean.
Along the sand people are beach-combing.
Watching them, I know I won't be going back.

They've soon finished with Bournemouth anyhow.
They show a penguin - different beach, cheap link,
An oil spill in the Antarctic - a single penguin with
A yellow bill. Old he seems, wearing his colours quietly,
The way a fool wears love. Why do I never say

What I really mean? Perhaps it's time I confessed
That meeting you, was like spotting the ocean, for the first time
From far away. Years we copied its perfect slow motion.
Now, all I’m left with are desperate excuses,
A storm on the television, the ghosts of sea-horses.

The late news flickers. The penguin, aware of his clipped wings
Addresses the beach like a senator in Washington D. C,
Old man in a tuxedo, lost amongst the spilt wreckage.
Perhaps, our love was not that long ago. Tonight, I'm conscious
Of your presence everywhere, and what seas may salvage.