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

THE SEA plunges forward with its entire body. You can fall asleep and wake up somewhere else. You can tell yourself you want to think one thing and no matter how much effort you make, how you set momentum, you can’t. Instead of making money, for example, you take the day off and go swimming; you don’t feel like being careful and it’s hot. I had a dream last night that I was stuck in a corner of my kitchen. Am I turning into my mother?

MY MOTHER liked to go to bed with a book in the afternoon, all the shades drawn, the air of her room frayed. But, then, what did I know? I was busy being young. One day she just went over the edge, stumbled into an abyss. It can happen in a dream or a room, whatever is to hand.

THE WORK – all the difficult work, is too often left until there is no hope for it. I’ve waited this long and I can wait longer, she said. What we need now is spare change, a fragrant stream near a green field with a door ready for our knock: what is it you need? If we let ourselves into our dreams, like climbing through a window, all the neglected work can begin. I think of her seated silently at her piano, hands in her lap.

THE AIR carries with it a scheme for making me miss her. All winter when I knew what plain tweed coat to look for, I understood how she went on despite her losses. I would hang my stubbornness on her if given half a chance now. In thick fog the dream got lost, couldn’t find its way back.