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

The lovers walked on the banks of the Neris, and watched the river
flow. Vilnius froze that year. He loved her - loved her to death –
nineteen slaps to the head. They found her in a hotel room. She lay there
on the bed, her skin smooth, not a sign of a bruise.

Her father walks through the Vallee de L’Eure in the shadow of death,
by the stream that flows to Nimes. Near les Arene, where death is the
game between beasts and men; in a small theatre the year before, they
read love songs of Appollinaire.

The house was full. They faced each other on a darkened stage, Marie and
Jean Louis, haloed in two pools of light. They seemed more like lovers than
father and child. Marie waif-like, something about the eyes, slightly
hooded, a sort of wilful absence with a Giaconda smile. Jean Louis relaxed,
slightly bowed, both of them smoking and drinking wine.

There was silence in the theatre – a listening as they read –

                                        Love vanishes like the water’s flow
                                                          Love vanishes 
                                                     How life is slow
                                        And how Hope lives blow by blow*

There was no hope for Marie Trintignant, nineteen blows to the head.
They flew her back to Paris where they pronounced her dead. The lover –
he died too. He served his time for murder and is now condemned to live.