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

Mantle-shelf - first exhibits: Connemara
rosary; slim wire-
       framed spectacles. Guides tell here you
wrestled misery peculiar to
your nature.

It struck me aghast
with a kind of
raw nakedness

Jesuit routine didn’t include poetry, did
Newman warn disaster? Ecclesiastic
rumours tinkle Waterford
chandeliers.
              Pulled at left corners, exhibit
two - starched bed-cover, then
steel-frames, told Connemara rosary. When
you got typhoid they
hustled you to the basement, away
from classrooms.

It struck me aghast

After, maids discovered priests tearing
corrected poems. Completing your life’s
stations, the
guide gestures to exhibit three -
relics of excommunicated work (Anthony
Kelly, selling poems on Grafton says ‘here
they love you when you’re dead.’)

Turn from laundered sheets, cold wire-
frames, Connemara roasry’s coiled adder…
Catholic bibles didn’t map living
Dublin, sometimes, thinking I could live
                                                         here
I recall how unprepared
for the Craic you were.

A kind of raw nakedness

Dying, taken from this room - Five flights
                                      down,
                                      brown lino-
coated stairs, each jolt
                         winged
universe from your delight
                                      You might
have felt life thin
                 as cabbage smells, from kitchen
corridors, strengthened. In -
out - breathe the past’s sour breath, sneck
curtains, close inner
doors behind
                     departing tours.

Outside, park’s rich lime
avenue. Did your spirits never
lift here? Walking, watching light’s
citrine hoop bowl?

Emerald Bay, Bead-
bonny Ash - red
petticoat hem.

A kind of raw nakedness struck me aghast.