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

An emperor gives a gift, stylishly,
and a Mughal miniature records it
(colour & gold on paper, height 7 3/16 inches)

we’re dazzled - all this art
and surprises              ‘Keeping the doors open’
Right?

Yes, I suppose, fascinated by the delicacy
of the piano part in the first movement
of Beethoven’s ‘Ghost’ Trio
(‘he sighed ...’)            but real enough,
aesthetic coat-trailing aside.
The delight beyond the technicalities
- not pursuing, but there
to be recognised

We can see this

And all those private separations?
When ‘we’ moves from the general
to the particular?

To talk of ‘you’ now
amongst all this ‘delight’
- moving into that other level -
the poverty of this, one without the other,
the delight more a refuge than any whole thing
when you’re away

Up in the hills the court is assembled,
the gifts exchanged
From the balcony I see you cross a courtyard,
could almost touch you -
but the distance.

                                    Be well.
the moonlight on your face
as you sleep now

*

outside the rain falling in the street
I hold you                     your flesh so soft

to begin to say - ‘I love you ...‘?

the heat of your belly

away        the hills
(Fuck ‘the hills’!)

my mouth on your throat
my body smells of your body

*

There are many fields
and the fortresses are so far apart.
The troops stand in line on the parade ground
while the sun beats down on them
and their bored officers.

it’s another day

meanwhile …

                                     there are many settings

A group of men can sit stiffly
for a regimental photo of the survivors of the disaster,
and then try to look neat and alert.

And their children ...?
living in a calm beyond this knowledge?
It is not so much a question of guilt
on either side, but maybe some form of recognition
which rarely happens.

And the years pass until one generation dies
and their knowledge with them
leaving behind only feelings of confused longing
that quietly spread beyond any conscious resentment.

Now put it together