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

There are black holes in the cosmos of the psyche
where lonely men in Salvation Army castoffs
stand forever on the corners of unknown cities.
Their feet are frozen but their hands can move
and they count their change eternally and
are always a nickel short of a cup of coffee
and they are always down to their last cigarette
and their stomachs are growling.
And this is the good part.
Because when they close their eyes,
a whole new world of horror opens
and their bodies tremble like piano wires
as their mouths gape and their jaws clench in horror
and they are rivetted to this place and
cannot open their eyes to shut it out.
And this is the good part.
Because all through the time when they are
trying to cone to grips with the horror of their lives
a cold distant voice is saying, “Pull yourself together.
Concentrate. Stop acting that way. Do something
about yourself. Stop that moaning.”
So they stand there heads bowed while judgment
is passed on them because everyone knows that
this is a Christian nation and it was not Christ’s
intention to have the likes of these in the same
company with decent people. No, these people just
need to stop being so self-indulgent, they still
have a chance to make something of themselves.
And this is the good part because,
underneath this is a bottomless pit where there
is nothing at all and you are falling through that
nothing endlessly and you are crying out but no one
hears your cry because no one is there, Christ has
never entered this place though Mary sometimes
reaches out and you can feel, just for a moment
the touch of her hand, the rustle of her blue gown
against your cheek and then that too is gone
and you are still falling.
There are black holes in the cosmos of the psyche
and few who enter them ever return and the few
who return are changed.
They hide their eyes from men - not from shame but
from compassion because where they have been
is in their eyes and what they have seem is there
and to look deep into their eyes is to go where
they have been, to see what they have seen
and to look too deep too long is to never return.