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

1.
And again the sea in my blood -

deserted pier, wind, returning touch,
as if it wanted to assure me that I am. Now, when what's past
vanishes in the polar lengths of memory, and up the live landslide, up
                                                                        the coils of the body
light is climbing.

The sun descends into the languid depth, pressed against its belly.

Then narrow frayed clouds stampede low with a gathering wind,
lifting the ridges of the waves.
And the whole sky hurries and the dark foamy side of the sea, in
                                                                            persistent rhythm,

walks at the thigh of the beach.
I have numerous eyes, like animal fur and feathers,
the heart sewn in a durable sack, - and again it beats in its bony 
                                                                                            basket.

2.
Glimmering coal ships, laborious insects, as if their holds
were carrying glitter.

From the seaside boulevard Jaffa can be seen, and the lane where
                                                                                     we stopped
in the heat of the night. And the night bore us inside
like an embodied dream.

Cirrus feathers over the sea lingering at dawn -
falling asleep, we took its pulse for ours.
The town on the long wave of dunes -

fat rain has just wetted the streets and branches,
sun dipped its hands in them, to the bottom, as in a barrel of 
                                                                                        rainwater;
car bodies and cedars of Lebanon are drying.Cogs of the machinery
                                                                         glisten: it turns, rolls

the bones of life