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

What I’m paid for
is to stare through this office window
& look at clouds:
                 the clouds are interrupted by paper
which is brought in
& dropped onto an ‘in’ tray
                                  by ‘Christine’ or ‘Anne’
two women who could be
          from Barcelona, Spain - but more likely
arrived here (yesterday?)
from Putaruru or Taihape
                                                          which is
not necessarily ‘the truth of it’
                            but at least - or at the most -
                                   a good enough imitation.

The clouds - Anne or Christine -
drift across the horizon
the variegated blue of the sea
                                                       sometimes
‘ride’ over Rangitoto
that mythical (mythos) island
                                        the paper obscures -
& all of it ‘in the course of time’
                                               becomes money
which (by ‘the nature of things’)
appears in my bank statement
                             not exactly ‘belonging’ to me
but as a form of transitory counting
                                             that waxes, wanes
                                  independently, ‘of itself’...

And it is ‘independent’
a kind of choreography/dancing -
clouds that are more or less
                                  paper moving over a desk
that(s more or less plastic or wood
‘signifying’ as much
                               as anything is ever ‘signified’
the ‘nature’ of things:
                               Anne or Christine, the wave
of a hand, the slide of a pen
which ‘constitute’
                                    whatever is ‘constituted’:
Christine, Anne ... the clouds
                                   particulars made manifest
                                                          realised ...