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

There was once a man with a red umbrella. And every time he opened this umbrella the rain would stop. There was once a girl with shoes made of glass. And when she wore them she could walk on the water. And the man with the umbrella kept it open the whole time so that it stopped raining altogether and there wasn’t any water any more and the girl couldn’t walk on it. And they all went by bus from Viru Square to the beach itself.

And this beach there was windy and wide and I could see the sea.

In the summer, after school, she often went to the railway track to collect pebbles. In the winter she walked on the snowdrifts by the big wooden fence. And in the spring when the grass was becoming green in Hirve Park and the birds began to fly she climbed right to the very top where High Hermann Tower stood and ran all the way down the steep winding path. And in the autumn Grandfather died.

It was one Sunday morning in September when the sky was blue and the sun was in the sky. Skinny and me had finished our homework and were walking over to Skinny’s place. Bet you can’t run as fast as me, says Skin. Bet I can - bet I can run faster than you, says me. And we race to his place - me round the building site and him down Fabriku Street. And here I am standing on his doorstep when he comes panting round the corner. What happened to you, then Skin? says me. You cheated, Four Eyes, says Skin, girls always cheat. And how, Skin - I flew!

When she heard this, Auntie made a funny face. ‘Well personally I don’t think I do,’ she said. ‘But I know many people much brighter than me who believe.’ ‘I think God’s more like a head than a body,’ I said and she laughed and ran to tell Mum.

So years pass and we no longer feel the wind as it sweeps across the coast shifting the clear sand; nor can we walk the surprising wideness of the beach early in the morning; we no longer see the sea.

And the dream we once had with Grandfather’s face fading in the photograph we have forgotten.

He wasn’t really our grandfather at all, but we called him Grandfather. He came every Sunday for lunch and we all giggled when he said ‘Good it was’ after finishing his stewed fruit. And then we saw him off to the tram stop in Fabriku Street. He lived alone with his son who loved him not.

In the picture she was standing on his right. His face looked straight ahead with its moustache eagerly surging forward, as if in expectation of some encounter. And then his face began to pale and his features one by one slowly began to disappear. His side of the picture became grey as ashes, and all the outlines blurred, and the paper began to disintegrate. But her face remained intact - only it became much older, the face from a photograph taken much later.

And now she is walking towards the glass door in the passage and she sees a strange woman approaching her from the other side of the door. But coming closer she recognises her own reflection.

In this way the gusts of wind and rain do not die down throughout an entire twenty-four hours. In the middle of the road I saw a grey and seemingly inanimate lump. I touched it with the toe of my shoe - it drew itself in, became perfectly round and stuck out all its needles. A large moon appeared from behind the storm clouds and lit up the wet trees. I shook one branch, and a whole deluge came pouring down on my head. The tree suddenly became alarmed, flapped its arms, beat its wings, and a dark silhouette tore itself out of its thickness and hurtled away.