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

She explosively vomits out dry, empty words,
A useless translation of deep emotions that strangle,
A weak rendition of the passion
Which struggles to escape from the prison of the body.
Expressions of maladjustment, even to her language!
The obligatory language over which we fake control.

On the sour streets of Hastings
She banishes the bleeding terms of her internment.
The chains loosen, the flesh weakens,
As the syllables roll out,
Without form; illuminating suppression.
Her aggression burns holes
Into the blood-stained streets on which we live,
Where the nasal glue
Sticks you to
Your self-inflicted flaws.

No one can hear a word that she utters,
Even though she screams with every symbol she has.
The symbols we gave, the words that we gave her
Weaken and die, for they cannot supply
The hatred she needs to convey.
Nobody hears or nobody listens to a thing that this girl needs to
                                                                                             say.

She implodes with the passion she cannot express,
For our language is futile and has censored our thoughts.
Now she can’t stop her onward recital
Of pointless points
And global interrogation.

Every. Single. Word. Is. Stressed.
To the point of destruction.
Her own self-destruction
Was meant as a means to an end.

Too much spirit, too great an understanding of the sickness which
                                                                                          ties us
To the wheezing streets of Hastings.
Let her continue the eternal recital,
For some people just aren’t human enough
To give up élan vital.