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

I.
Prospectors, gathered gazing
on a high hill
westwards.

Columbus came close
to falling first time
until he found
a far new shore
colonies of slavery
slaughter of souls
burning.

gathered on an African beach
naked, afraid
and fires burning
and so many
and the ships came in
and the lion roared
on the beach
and in the wilds
voices crying
they threw down their spears
and they summoned gods
and they said

be with us now
be with us now
forever and ever
and at the hour of our

falling
burning.

II.
They plundered the Moorish plains
slew Saracen in the dusty Sierras
and crossing the unstill seas
they came upon
the holy city
to build a new Jerusalem
with Maltese crosses in old stonework

the stilltorn island
and they knew their own people not
and they would not let them die

on Calgary.
And they built
the third temple
shining on the city summit
covering the Holy Rock
looking on the Mount of Olives
with the footprint
in the dry rock
stairway to the one above

and let them stand
wailing
at the Western Wall.

III.
They took them
from their homes at dawn
in the silence after Kristallnacht
they took them
they took
their sons
their daughters
heard their crying in the rainfall
broken glass has hidden their tears.

They hid them deep
inside the Schwarzwald
raped away their place in heaven
whistled them out
in the frozen dawn
they dug their own graves
in the ether
as in Egypt

in Sheol
where the dead spirits are
where the doors
cannot be broken.

IV.
And when they reached
the promised land
they found the vineyards
of the Jordan
strewn with shells
of spent mortars

they offered prayers there
sacrificed with Dead Sea water
watched by spirits on Masada
giving thanks for deliverance
with a hundred million dead
on the plains before the Urals

and they took the promised land

two thousand years since they’d left the
                                                     Galilee
they claimed it as their own

and under Allied machine guns
they emptied the villages.

V.
And the voice cried
loud, strong,
it echoed through all the wilderness
from dunes, dry rocks,
down red ravines.
And still
through all the wilds
down all the paths of history
in all the trails of time

there was no one there
to hear it.