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

In the absolute
                       birds always sing
but in the corporate board room
the men in grey are at the wheel.
For the planet.
                       Steel nerves.
The people look out for themselves
                                                      (no change there).
The government is busy
                                     running from a bad public image
into the aleatory with a cocked missile
                                                            (on a primal scream)
one hand holding on to its balls,
                                                 the other
pleading for a gradualist approach.
And, as always, looking for the lesser of two evils
and studying the polls . . .
                                        so many still patient,
so many inclined to be cynical
                                               (a null;
disregard unless angry).
                                     Public Relations will come up with
the right words:
                       those with grievances will be allayed
and the loyal center
                              will receive the medal of virtue
and the president of a great union
                                                    said to a reporter
looking into his affairs in 1955:
                                               'We've got the muscles.
You're just writing words.'

And the Great Powers had a gentleman's agreement:
no peace until each reaches military superiority.

But there was peace,
                                 the peace of hard facts,
their own model/
                          and the system's input-output . . .
strange how secure
                               this dry habitat feels/
and day from 9 to 5:
                               each man at his own work .
in his second nature/
                                the familiar old faces,
the neighbourhood banter.

Also dissent,
                    that inner peace/
and trust
              crying from the bowels
for an honest leader,
                                not too ambitious/
the young,
                gentle towards each other,
and the old
                 finally at peace with their own individuality/
the mountains at night/
each thing was calm
                                when it basked in its own nature.
Then it came under
                              the spell of a moon,
content, like it,
                      always to make the rounds
of its fixed orbit.

All, all were securely tucked in this.
                                                      Then the news:
a band of disillusioned young
                                             lieutenants and captains
had rebelled
                   and broke the jaw of the old Jefe
and entered the orbit of Marx,

and the soldiers marched
                                       down the street
smiling and waving
                             at the people,
in each gun barrel
                             a carnation aloft.
And the people joined the march.
                                                   Everybody out!   
Into history!
                  Solemn. Tall.
Up to them now.
                         And they marched.
When they had had enough,
                                             they broke up into jubilant groups.
The children joined hands
                                        and danced in a circle,
and the men hugged
                                like bears,
dapping congratulations
                                     on each other's backs.
One climbed a tree
                             and crowed like a cock,
another stood upright
                                 like a squirrel and munched
imaginary acorns.
                           And the crowd laughed.

And their feeling for each other
                                               was so sweet and overpowering
that some stretched out on a park bench
                                                              and would have been content
to bask in it forever.

Thus: they were all men,
                                      they started from there.
It was incumbent, therefore,
                                           to be generous and gentle.
Why had they been willing
                                        to settle for a beer and a woman?
Dopes!
 
That night they walked the streets, 
                                                     thinking
'How great man could be!' 

But two weeks later,
                                the chemical workers, the steel workers,
the government workers, the printers, the textile workers,
all went out on strike
                                against the new order.
They were suspicious again.
                                             Impatient.

And the guard posted
                                 at the entrance to the Government Building
was lounging
                    in a cocked beret, pistol canted,
and the old civil servant,
                                      as he passed, grumbled,
'Why don't they try doing
                                      something useful, like growing tomatoes?'
And so it went,
                       into the next generation.