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

Mr Green — I’m sorry, Mr Brown
what seems to be the trouble? Doctor, this:
I think I’m a librarian. What’s more
I want to live in Hull. I see
well someone has to live up there. (he sighs
and takes a sheet. He writes: ‘today, I learned
the meaning of despair’) Go on, what else?
The lines I’m coming out with — they’re not mine
for someone else is writing down my arm,
I can’t believe these prizes that I get.
The only thing I’m interested in
is whether my mortgage payments will result
in forward-rolling equity; I reckon I’m a bore
but editors can’t seem to get enough … I see
(he writes ‘deluded grandeur’ on the form)
... my skin is turning grey and I’m a wimp
I hem and haw and hack my arguments up
as though I can’t decide, but that’s because
I know so many famous people now.
Your symptoms sound quite bad. You say
it all begun in 1963? (the patient shifts and looks
like someone sitting on a tack)
Yes, it dates from when my mum and dad —
A complicated family history, then.

But Doctor, I’m expected to be good
they all want modish narrative poems now:
you can’t say what you mean at any price,
they’d rather I wrote out the contents list
of HP Sauce. So go ahead
… They like the scientific bits …
… and formulae, and signs … Oh, good … they like the dots
but most of all they like the swearing,

references which might be kinky sex
with girlfriends I don’t want, and when I wake
at two, or three, to think about my life
I know it’s Philip Larkin in my head
Yes (he says, and leans across the desk)
… his hollow laughter rings between my ears
he’s the one who tells me what to do,
the rest I hoover up from poetry mags.

I cannot see the problem, Mr Green
you’re guaranteed one paperback per year.
That’s just it! I’m tempted to go on
and on and on and on and on,
a carpetlike approach to covering floors
or something like an outsize toilet-roll.
The wife screams Stop! , I tell her it’s no use
for talent always outs, and out it comes
I’m on my seventh keyboard and the house
is full of concertina’d A 4 white
in 10-point Palatino. Doctor, help,
I’m like a runaway train without the brakes
what’s even worse, my mind has gone
the family says I’m certified
the reason why I’m not banged up
is literate folks keep sending me awards
and one of us must graft to earn the cash.
Doctor, are you listening to me? Zzzzzzzz …