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

Where books are gathered there gathers also the dust
That sieves through the pores of the skin and the head
The absolute dust of the language that falls apart
In your hands, that settles in your palm
Like a promise. Ideas are dust.Words dust,
A universe of dust between planet and planet,
Precious dust certainly, gold dust, a dusting
Of light filtered through eyelashes batting over
The damp-smelling page, the foxing, the marginals,
The improvised shopping list of the dead,
The dead themselves, the dust of the prisons,
The workhouses of dust, the dust bowl, the dustbin
Of history, the dust of the poor who have wasted away
Into particles, molecules, atoms, the dust of the birds
In their nests, the dust of the hotel where the dwarf
And the scholar fossick among motes
Among invisible books, the books of the imagination,
The trapped dust of the folded page, the folded umbrella,
The folds of the skin that are clogged with dust,
The dust of the ovens to come, the dust of the scouring pad,
The citizens of dust in the dusty streets
The dust of the city you shake off your sandals
The dust mites, the silverfish of the imagination,
The dust of the station where a speech is in progress,
The dust of the mountain pass with its butchered soldiers.
Librarian of the universal library, have you explored
The shelves in the stockroom where the snipers are sitting,
The repository of landmines in the parking bay
The suspicious white powder at the check-out desk
The mysterious rays bombarding you by the photocopier
The psychological disorder of the filing system
That governs the paranoid republic of print
In the wastes of the world?