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

     A rolling expanse of smooth green hills slope gently to the horizon. The sky is slate blue, the atmosphere that which precedes a thunderstorm. A group of riders on white horses pauses on a summit. They are looking for someone. There is complete silence.

     It is only a matter of time before they see me. There is no place to hide; nothing interrupts the flow of the land.

     Suddenly, at the foot of the hill on which I stand a white house appears, and I am running down the hill towards it.

     Inside it is empty and very clean. I look around desperately for somewhere to hide. On the flagstones in the kitchen is a table covered by a white cloth which touches the floor on all sides. I crawl under it and wait on my knees, listening. Then I hear the hoofbeats thudding down the hill. For a while after, all is quiet. Suddenly, there is the sound of boots echoing along the passage — without pausing they cross the kitchen floor and the tablecloth is snatched away. As the light blinds me, I wake up with a start, a great cry of triumph ringing in my ears.

. . . . . . . . . .

A broken Norwegian painted egg-shel
A red blot of candle wax stuck to the carpet.
A strip of sellotape pinned to the light shade.
A handleless cup, containing fat, with hand-painted horse by Dulcie Vaughn.
A dishcloth with nylon bristles from washing-up brush adhering.
A broken matchstick stuck in light socket to keep it in and the light on.
A hot water bottle full of cold water on Playboy Calendar.
A hairbrush, bristles up, on tea-stained box of chessmen.
A notice announcing party thrown by Brighton Socialist Society which took
place last month.
A dartboard standing wedged in a top drawer.

. . . . . . . . . .

     On the top of my bookcase, along with a small leaden figure smoking a hookah, two pennies, a bottle of Alka-Seltzer, and dust, is a photograph of Janet Simpson. She has, in the picture, dark hair, quite long, and is wearing all that you can see of an embroidered cardigan. She is gazing wistfully, almost sorrowfully, at a point just above the top of Stanley’s guitar somewhere in the region of my can of Slick Shaving Cream. It’s not easy to tell exactly what she is looking at or why; the pristine black-or-white world where she now lives seems strangely incompatible with this sordid ill-lit little room that surrounds her.

     She lives here in memory of an age gone by; of newly-washed hair, school uniforms and visits to the dentist. Since those days, when two people held hands and made the world stand still, time has swept me through a succession of increasingly depressing events and wrought equally depressing changes upon my person. I am now overgrown with body hair, of various kinds and all untended; ravaged by indigestion, and over-burdened with all the insuperable problems of an incompetent romantic set adrift from destiny.

     And so, I find myself wondering, almost sorrowfully, how she has withstood the pressures of time passing. Is she, too, ill-lit and overgrown? Broke, dirty, and confused? Have we, in fact, become indistinguishable?

. . . . . . . . . .

     In front of me, a jar of sardine and tomato paste, a spill of pennies; a silver tobacco case crammed with dog-ends; tatty-cheque-book, empty; books, concertina-ed on the shelf. A mirror, map and toothbrush.

     Beyond, the meter on the wall, the tiny keys for which I’ve kept and hidden in the drawer.

     Shoes, some pigeon-toed, rubbing noses on the floor.

     Last night’s candle stub on the corner of the chair by the bed has sent a thin trickle of red wax down the chair-leg. And the magazine we read is still where it fell.

. . . . . . . . . .

     I have known Stanley three years.

     In 1968, he broke his hand on a filing cabinet with a blow intended for the then President of the Student’s Union, a Mr. Beckerman, who ducked. When he, Stanley, eventually reached the hospital, he was judged to be too drunk to merit treatment.

     At about this time, an obsession with karate was responsible for further injuries riot only to his hand, but also his foot, ribs, back, and beard. For these, too, he claims to have received inadequate medical attention.

     In 1969, he burst a vein in his penis and was hit by a tube train at Earl’s Court. (Following the latter incident I took him to St. Stephens Maternity Hospital, from which we were both quite rightly ejected).

     On another occasion he attempted suicide by gassing himself in the oven. Unfortunately for him, the feeling of inadequacy which had induced the attempt was further strengthened when he awoke to discover that the gas had run out.

     Once, he succeeded in convincing me that logically we should all commit suicide. At the same time, however, an excess of alcohol prevented us from taking the ultimate, logical step.

. . . . . . . . . .

     It was during the Summer Term of 1956; Drayton looked up from his meal of fish and peas and said “Do you promise to do anything I say?”

     “Yes, alright”, I replied. Although it is true that I might not have answered so readily had I given myself time to think, there were several reasons, not all of them bad, for answering the way I did. Firstly, I was scared. Drayton’s face, which was now brooding over my reply across the table, was dark and dangerous, with a surly mouth and small shrewd eyes, and the combination of the two, at least in this instance, turned my stomach with fear. I noticed that Lloyd-Edwards and Hawkins had stopped eating to watch. Drayton looked at me with his twisted smile and said: “Kill yourself”. Something in the way he said it made the food stick in my throat. A new and considerably more potent wave of horror engulfed me. He offered me his knife; I sat staring at it stupidly, unable to speak or move.

     From the head of the table Mr. Speechley told Drayton to get on with his dinner.

     From that moment on, hardly a day went by when he did not find some opportunity to exert his influence over me. On finding me alone in the classrooms or lavatories he would sidle up and slip his penknife, a large dull instrument, into my hand. Then, rather in the manner of a good salesman, he would point out the reasons for my using it, not least of which was that only by fulfilling my obligation to him could he then give up his own unpleasant duty.

     His friends, of whom one or two were usually hanging around in the background during our confrontations, were not sure to what extent they approved of what was going on, although they obviously derived much sadistic pleasure from it. Just at the point when they realised things were going too far, he would skillfully turn it all into a joke, the tension dissolving into laughter.

     However, although only ten years old, John Drayton was determined to discover the limits of my endurance, and, as the weeks went by, he continued, with ingeniously well-timed persistence, to remind me of my unpaid debt.

     Finally, in the kind of torment adults can only know in dreams, I set in motion a sequence of events that led to the solution of the problem.

     The classrooms and lavatories were situated at the top of the building, a manor house that had been converted into a preparatory school. The windows on the east side overlooked a large courtyard.

     One evening, I told my friends that I was going to jump out of the window. I realised that if I convinced them that this was actually what I intended to do, I should stand a reasonable chance of being prevented from doing it. Shaking with determination, I put one leg over the window-ledge, struggling to throw off the hands that grabbed me to pull me back. Eventually, I was forced to let go of the window frame, and fell back into the room. My subsequent relief to find that not only was I still alive, but that this incident had been unconditionally accepted by everyone present to have been the final act of the drama, was immense.

     Those who had taken part in my rescue, emotionally exhausted, led me back to the classroom.

     Drayton took the news calmly, and told me that under the circumstances he had decided to let me off. He was satisfied.

. . . . . . . . . .

     At 5.30 on a Sunday morning I, being tired, have taken off my glasses in preparation for bed. The effect of these two factors combined is to make everything appear decidedly odd. Clothes, both hanging from doors and sprawling over chairs and floor, are conspiring together in groups. I keep catching them moving out of the corner of my eye, indescribable, blurry forms of limitless interpretation. Everything has lost its identity and ceases to exist in its former role, to become part of a world of implications, buzzing with silence.

     Now, lying down, I try to relax, and, to my astonishment, hear the Music for the first time.

. . . . . . . . . .

     At five to two into Saturday afternoon, consumed by a desire to be creative, I got up and looked out of the window. However, the street below looked much the same as usual and the sea beyond as wet. I was rapidly becoming absorbed into the banality of the world below, rather as reluctant toast is fed into a compulsive breakfaster, when I was startled by a loud succession of hoots, whistles, grunts coming from the room next door. After a moment, I realised I was listening to effects caused by a rapidly twiddled tuning knob on a radio already at full volume. Finally, the knob-twiddler alighted on a symphony by Mendlssohn and settled. I could imagine Stanley, (for surely it is he), reaching for his cigarette papers and rueing the loss of Saturday, which he already considers irrevocable.

     The creative impulse still demanding expression, I made some coffee, spilt it, and took the remainder next door. Sure enough, there he was as anticipated, and in poor humour.

     “So much for Saturday, then” he grimaced sourly and peering into the empty cup I proffered.

“Come, it’s not as bad as that” I lied. He shook his head dismally.

     “Worse, matey. They got Friday too remember?” He closed his eyes and began to scratch away at himself under the sheets.

     Determined to shake him from his euphoric gloom, I seized a broom, and fell to pounding the ceiling with it, crying as I did so: “Well, I feel an excess of the Creative Process coming on!” (This latter was a phrase my tutors delighted to hear me utter — I was studying Art at the time). However, it did not seem to have the desired effect on my companion who, giving me little opportunity to involve the broom in other creative possibilities that had sprung to mind, ordered me brusquely from the room.

     I returned whence I had come and began to look around in a somewhat desultory fashion. My eye fell on a piece of paper which read: ‘Choose one of the following themes. This study must be completed by . . .’ I hastily averted my eye to scan what I laughingly call my desk in search of an alternative. It was littered with bric-a-brac of astonishing variety, but nothing seemed to correspond with the kind of providential intervention I had hoped for. Last night’s bacon rinds staring smugly up out of a frozen pond of grease only served to remind of certain domestic chores of pressing urgency. The Alka-Seltzer beckoned invitingly.

     I stared blankly for a while at a sheet of note-paper which consisted entirely of crossed-out lines. Suddenly I notice that one line had been left intact. My pulse quickened. Could this be the clue I sought? Could I, inspired for a moment during last night’s graphic meanderings, have inadvertently written a line of monumental importance? I read it eagerly. It said: “ . . .or, in an obliquely metaphorical sense, half”. I sat down, baffled.

     Then I made a determined attempt to think of anything which, when halved, could under any circumstance be described as “obliquely metaphorical” but without success. I gave up. The answer, if any, lay beneath an impenetrable forest of crossings-out. There was only one thing to do.

     I got a piece of tracing paper and traced the network of frenzied scribblings on to it. It looked rather good, so I pinned it on the wall, experiencing as I did so, the warm after-glow of self-fulfilment.

     The creative urge was spent.

. . . . . . . . . .

     He was standing, looking out of his attic window at the street below. It was about three in the morning. Suddenly he noticed that in a house across the road another attic window was, like his own, still lit up.

     It was, however, sometime before he realised that not only was he looking at another window but also into someone else’s bedroom.

     Curiously enough, the idea that he might be accused of spying never occurred to him and peering with an intentness that was purely objective, he could see on what later proved to be the bed, patches of colour, red and black.

     At precisely the same moment that he discovered he was actually looking at a dark haired girl wearing a red nightdress and lying in bed, she suddenly sat up on one elbow and, frozen presumably with horror, stared back.

     How long they remained, gazes locked across the Street, I do not know, but for him it seemed interminable.

     When his mind gradually began working again, his first thought was that sooner or later she would have to move, and then probably turn off the light. It certainly never crossed his mind to move; if his first instinct had been to avert his eyes, by now he knew that whatever happened he would have to see it through to the bitter end.

     As if in answer to his thought, she broke the spell by flinging herself across the room and plunging it into darkness.

     He stood for a while longer, experiencing first a feeling of rejection, then of relief and, finally, shame. Only when he realised that he was still as visible, if not more so, than previously and that she was obviously going to take advantage of the new one-way system and might even be considering legal action of some kind, did he hastily move away. As yet, however, there have been no repercussions.

. . . . . . . . . .

     I called round to see Paddy Goff several times during his stay at 15 Salisbury Road, mainly because he lived nearer than anyone else I knew.

     Sometimes I would go out early in the evening to visit the launderette, and drop in on Paddy with a suitcase of evil-smelling dirty washing, and leave Paddy’s six hours later, having left the suitcase of evil-smelling, dirty washing on his kitchen floor.

     On other occasions I would set out on much longer and more important journeys and stop off at Paddy’s where I would remain until it was too late to continue.

     He, unlike myself, was always in and I, therefore, had no need to write: a person came and went” or “I called but no one answered” on bits of paper and pin them on his door.

     From the moment he opens it, we start trying to interest each other in our problems. Each anxiously awaits the moment when the other slips up and shows some awareness of what the other has been saying. I invariably make the first and only mistake.

     Nobody has ever had problems like Paddy. Paddy has problems the way some people have acne; they keep spreading. Paddy’s acne, however, although extensive, is one of the least of his problems.

     These make me forget my own to such an extent that when I emerge into the cool night air, I have to make quite an effort to remember what they were. Not until then can I begin to enjoy again the comforts of self-indulgence; the cosiness of misery; the fine, warm flow of knowing just how unloved, insecure and inadequate I am.

     Moreover, in the unlikely event of actually being some help to Paddy or even, the ultimate disaster, solving one of his problems and thereby acquiring the feeling of social competence, the task of re-creating my role of incompetent becomes considerably more difficult. The repertoire of tricks of the trade I employ to ensure that I remain a consistent failure has never been so ruthlessly exploited as after a session of this kind.

     I often wonder how anyone can remain friends with someone who is worse off than oneself.

. . . . . . . . . .

     Above the bed, pinned by a strip of insulating tape designed to protect the occupant from the draughts which issue through the cracks in the woodwork, dangles a single black hair, about ten inches long.

     I first discovered this incriminating piece of evidence whilst engaging in a tender scene with a friend of mine, who is blonde, early one morning about a week ago.

     Having overcome my initial shock of surprise with a superb effort of will, I realised I was faced with a problem of some complexity. Firstly, I had to come to terms with this item, this pointer to past nocturnal activity, without allowing my partner to become aware that my mind had been so suddenly diverted from the task in hand. Secondly, I had to contain a curious buoyancy of spirit which, on reflexion, I reluctantly attribute to no less than smug self-satisfaction, for all my wiles and other clevernesses seemed to be embodied in that single curling strand. I am ashamed to say that when she asked me what I was laughing about, I couldn’t tell her.

     I think this event was responsible for the entire collapse of the relationship.

. . . . . . . . . .

     A week later, my indecision, coupled with a need to convince Stanley that I remained as yet unmoved by any affection shown me by the opposite sex, had led her to become increasingly reluctant to show me any.

     Having been away for several days (I forget where) I made a concerted effort to re-establish liaisons by waiting, happily expectant, in her car, which was parked outside the college where she worked.

     When she came she seemed surprised to see me and, strangely upset by this, my first effort, in fact, to meet her unexpectedly.

     She took me off to a shop, on the pretext she was hungry, and even when I saw another figure in the car on our return, it didn’t occur to me that she’d been expecting it.

     As we drove off, I tried to appear unconcerned about the fact that I didn’t know where we were going or who this strange third person was (although the tension in the air made me pretty suspicious) by flipping casually through a comic I’d bought. My mind was in a whirl and my heart hammered.

     After a while I tried a little conversation, but no-one seemed to hear. I felt as if they were driving me to a secluded spot somewhere to bump me off. I could imagine him saying: “Don’t you worry, baby, it’all all be over soon”.

     Suddenly, I realised the car had stopped and the mystery man was getting out.

     “I’ll see you then”, he said, touching her on the arm, as they faced each other on the pavement. Her eyes sparkled.

     Several hours later I left her house to catch the bus home. As she had always driven me home in the past, I, making the second decision of the evening, opted for the bus in a final attempt to recover a little dignity. She asked me if I wouldn’t prefer a lift. At this, I wavered and replied ambiguously that from the point of comfort I certainly would but added that under the circumstances I thought it more appropriate to catch the bus.

     “Oh, shut up”, she said, “I’ll run you back”.

     “Oh, all right” I said, hating it, myself and everything. I got up and started pacing about.

     After a pause, as if trying to help, she asked: “Why did you want to catch a bus?”

     “Well”, I said in desperation “I just thought...” But, by this time, the adrenalin that had kept me going for the last few hedging, evasive, nerve-wracking hours was running dry and my voice trailed off into silence. It was becoming obvious to us both that I needed to have my mind finally and permanently made up.

     “All right, then, catch the bus” she told me.

     “What time does it leave?”

     “In about ten minutes”.

     “Oh well, I’d better be off then”, I said, sitting down again.

     Although I am sure she was as unhappy about the whole thing as I was, she told me to go. Thus I was robbed of my last chance.

     “I feel really bad about this” she said as we stood against each other for the last time.

     “So do I” I muttered hoarsely, groping for the door.

     She closed it behind me.

. . . . . . . . . .

     Every day, for several weeks, I have taken a bag into town with me. It’s a plastic bag, given free with goods purchased at Waitrose, a big supermarket. The contents of this bag are always the same: three books; ‘The Mystery of Arthur Gordon Pym’, ‘Mandrake’ by Susan Cooper, and ‘The Children of the Damned’ by A. V. Sellwood.

     These books have become an insufferable burden to me. By taking them into town every day I am hoping to get rid of them for good. I haven’t read them and I don’t intend to. I believe the person they belong to doesn’t want them any more. I don’t know who this person is, though, and I don’t care.

     Every day I go into town carrying the bag and looking for a small green car. It has scratches on the wing painted with white anti-rust paint. If I find it, and it’s parked somewhere, empty, I shall open the door (the lock doesn’t work) and put the books on the front seat and walk away.

. . . . . . . . . .

     Emboldened by the passing of time, he decided to make another visual assault on the girl across the street.

     Glancing casually through her window, he noticed an unusual amount of activity within and, in order to ascertain exactly what the nature of the activity was, he siezed his telescope and crawled across the floor to the window, opening the lower half a crack. Through this he pushed the telescope and peered down it. As the blurred image of the lighted window gradually swam into focus, he found himself staring into the face of a strange man, not a yard, apparently, from his own, and glowering intently at him from her bed. For an instant the terrified watcher cherished a fleeting hope that the man was only resting, and, consequently, lost in thought, but a second look at that purposeful glare dispelled it instantly. There was no doubt about it; his whole attitude portrayed a man both interrupted and cross. Dropping his telescope, our hero sprang back, knocking over a chair, and his head struck the floor, on which he lay for a considerable time.

. . . . . . . . . .

     About one a.m. the other morning, in a damp chill air, a figure of a man was seen walking along a groyne.

     It was high tide. He walked gingerly, carefully testing each step before committing his whole weight to the curved and slimy surface before him.

     By now he had reached a point about twenty yards along the wall; about ten from where the end of the groyne vanished under the water.

     Suddenly he slipped; his feet shot from under him and he fell on his back into the water. The sea closed over his head as the weight of his overcoat and shoes dragged him under.

     He struggled to the surface and struck out for the shore. His feet soon touched the bottom however, and he was able to wade to safety.

     At this point, another figure rose from the ground to greet him. Apparently this one had been following a few steps behind on the groyne but had hurried back lest his amusement, which was still apparent, had caused him to lose his balance also.

     Although still weak from laughter, he noticed that his companion was no longer wearing his spectacles.

     Obviously they were still at the bottom of the sea. Shrugging his waterlogged shoulders, the first figure lumbered back into the water in an effort to retrieve them. However, the depth of the water and a hail of pebbles thrown from the shore, forced him to return.

     It was not until they were together again on the foreshore that they noticed a curious dancing light, weaving its way along the beach towards them.

     A moment later, standing in a pool of light thrown by the stranger’s helmet, found them discussing the predicament together. The stranger, who turns out to be a Scot, had been angling from the pier, from which he has seen the whole thing. He knows the coastline well, it seems, and tells them that if they wish to recover the missing spectacles they must wait until about six, when the tide would be out. Owing to the direction of the wind, the east side of the groyne should remain undisturbed, he explains. This being the side where the spectacles in fact lay, the two companions set off home in quite a cheerful state of mind, the one still staggering under the weight of his sodden clothing, and the other chatting gaily about hot baths and cups of tea.

     Five hours later, in the grey stillness of dawn, a figure was seen walking down the beach and peering about him uncertainly. The tide was out and he walked gingerly, picking his way over the wet shingle.

     Sometimes he stopped and looked around in a puzzled sort of way, then, bending almost double, began a painstaking examination of the ground in front of him.

     Suddenly he froze: and snatched something up in his hand with a cry of recognition. He looked about him triumphantly before stomping back up the beach.

. . . . . . . . . .

     I saw her again, once. It was inevitable. We met in the dark room, by the light of the enlarger. Without realising it, I’d spent the last few weeks doing things and going places unusual for me, presumably so as to see her by accident, as it were, and thus keeping myself adequately misinformed about my real intentions. To this end, I had, a few days previously, attended a ballet, hoping to spot her in the audience. Apart from noticing that the only performers were two girls with white, painted faces, I spent the duration peering awkwardly about me in the gloom of the auditorium, to the mystification and chagrin of my companions.

     And now, here I was, hanging about in the Photography Department, doing much the same thing, only this time she was there too.

     As this was hardly the place to talk, and because I think we both needed a few minutes to compose ourselves, we went to the canteen and there, over a cup of tea, I soon found out what I wanted to know.

     “I’m leaving home”, she said, “and moving into a flat with Bob”.

     “Oh really”. I said, wondering if this was the same person I had once met in a car, and deciding that it was. “Well, I hope it all works out all right”. I gave her what I hoped was a cool, reappraising glance permeated with quizzical good humour (or, more accurately, this was how I described the contorted spasms my facial muscles felt compelled to make when I later gave the whole deplorable affair my customary glossing over).

     I received in return a quick impatient glance which told me that of course it would and even if it didn’t it would be through no fault of mine. Hastily I mentioned the ballet I’d seen and asked if she’d seen it. She had; she’d been one of the dancers.

. . . . . . . . . .

     Dear Stanley,

     I now have a job which goes as follows:-

     At 7.5 I am woken by a landlady who is old and tough. I get up, wash, shave; I put on shirt, tie, suit; comb hair, polish shoes.

     Breakfast: I eat sausage, egg, and beans; drink tea. The food sticks in my throat. I drink tea. She chats, I nod my head, thinking of something else.

     I pick up note-books, pens, timetables, cigarettes and overcoat and at 8.20 I am standing outside in the rain.

     At the school gates, the loungers hide a cigarette, hoot and whistle.

     At 9 o’clock I am in the classroom. Crowds of youths are limbering up outside. I let them in; they charge past, fighting for the seats at the back.

     At break, I slop my coffee, crowding round the staff trolley.

     11 o’clock: eager to please everyone I shout, I tear the paper crookedly. Paint is spilt, a handbag thrown out of the window. I send two girls to the Headmistress. A boy threatens me with his big brother. I tell him he should be old enough to look after himself; he agrees. A girl bites off the ends of three paint brushes; I give her some more.

     In the staffroom another teacher, a fat German girl, starts chatting me up.

     4 o’clock: I stay behind in classroom to clear up; paintings still drying on desks. From the window I can see the staff in headscarves and cloth caps hurrying to their cars for a quick getaway. On the way out I pass the detention room: “only room for half the school or else the whole lot would be there”, says the master in charge. He beats them up, the only one there who enjoys his work.

     5 o’clock: landlady opens door; I take off coat, tie, change shoes.

     Supper is large and salty but I eat, nodding my head as she chats. Later I go upstairs; open my notebook, files and timetables. I look at them in despair, then give up, get up and go to bed.

     Hope all is well with you . . . . . .