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

In peace to let it go this life

“neither thou nor thy fathers have known”
Mark of Cain. You were so scarred
they said, so ugly, we didn’t want another

Honour them, they that ne’er praised
Mine own anything

*

It’s not true. I don’t want to die.
Only … Whatever pleasures,
       in the end, it’s what is
       always there. After Eden
       how can we be happy ?

*

White Man’s Polynesian Laments, or
         Advice to Travellers
     Use Monoi in the sun you’ll fry like an egg
     Marry a woman who can separate Lingkaran

“where ‘the heart’ finds rest” Duncan used to say
“where one is open, where a sense of defensiveness
or insecurity and all the other complexes of response
to place can be finally dropped” (Creeley,
Tales Out Of School).

*

Just an old popa’a
Don’t pay attention to me
I just layabout making tee
toy sous the pandanus tree

*

It’s some day, sweat sweat
Half xanax 3AM awakening, then
more leaves, good ones, 30 bucks Pascal
Sculpting stones, coffee, poetry,
bowels move thank goodness, use dental floss
w/care like Gaston lines his pockets
no income tax here, rich get proverbially
& VAT, the regressive sales tax of Europe,
hitting the poor and lower middle classes
arrives with more money for Chile’s
mellowing Fascist regime murderer chosen Man of Year
everyone’s cutting deals getting boxes ready for shipping
out of here not investing in car, TV, WP, why bother

*

All I need it seems to slow me down,
     a little distortion
          of the truth - a
               reality

The girl next door
     Oh how I’d
          love to travel w/you
               “been in this joint before”
                    doors facing Cornwall
                         Abigail’s “Doc Martens in the sun”

*

Reading Richard III, much rereadings of The Man
     this past decade here, nothing
          matches what he somehow did

Jazz tape David Bergen gave me years and years ago
     on to sound of waves on reef
          can at least still hear thank god
               read more Pentateuch?

*

Even here I think of money. More money
     I could rent a car at least make it easy
          go Papeete, marae…Think: pack up

& take the flight back to Hawaii.
Life here hard for Tahitians too

(Well, hard is not like in Algeria now
     but, you know, no car one room constant
          anti-mosquito keep clean look at lagoon
               Worry can you afford whiskey or whatever

Not exactly Mr. Successful American)

Waiting for monthly packet of mail. If second
packet sent, then another 2 maybe 3 weeks
before it comes. Go nuts waiting sans vehicle
Bicycles dangerous now too many cars trucks speeding
& they’re not free anymore as before
Too hot & humid to walk beyond local stores
Maybe 1/4 to 1/2 mile, that’s getting out of Dodge.
What am I complaining about, really: Lovely woman on motu.
And I am just too old and, so what (Miles)
Am I doing here then?

*

from PREFACE TO POETRY (cf. Duncan’s Passages)

Propertius is Pound not fucking Iris Barry
Freud named it sublimation through art; really
He thought it fraudulent. I’m not sure.

*

The Rainy Season

Every day & every night
You scratch the mosquito bites

*

Jackie from Laos

She’s only a whore
     In the Sun Gold spa
          Not even the one I requested

But I think of her now
     Her hair and her breasts
          Her mouth on my cock her cunt & her ass & her legs & her
                                                                                         thighs